DaMoshe:
His article is indeed well-written.
But, by “great”, you presumably mean for today’s maskilim who disregard mesorah in favor of anything from the talmud professor of YU (who also disregarded mesorah, especially his family’s mesorah by his adopting the idolatry and heresy of Zionism) that they call “the Rav”.
Rav Moshe Feinstein was the Posek HaDor.
As the article points out, he ruled that women may not study even mishnayos – never mind gemara – other than pirkei avos.
Rabbi Dr. Soloveichik was “responsible for all the tuma in America” according to Rav Aharon Kotler, and he also was the head of “Mizrachi”, meaning “Religious Zionist” idolatry and heresy, in America, so his opinion is anyways irrelevant to Orthodox Judaism. The talmud lecture he gave to the Stern College women was also obviously not permitted.
Rabbi Twersky’s attempt to justify his grandfather’s non-halachic pirtza mentioned above simply doesn’t work, and it is also absurd to compare that to the Chofetz Chaim’s heter of teaching chumash and mussar, as he did.
Rabbi Twersky writes, “If ever circumstances dictate that study of the Oral Law is necessary to provide a firm foundation for faith, such study becomes obligatory and obviously lies beyond the pale of any prohibition.” Even if that “heter” were theoretically true – still, none of the Orthodox (i.e., non-MO) schools ever dreamed that “circumstances dictate that study of the Oral Law is necessary to provide a firm foundation for faith”. So, no, of course his pirtza and disregarding of mesorah by permitting that which had always been forbidden were not needed and, yes, it obviously was “an instance of modernism”, and not “Torah intuition” unlike Rabbi Twersky’s attempt to claim otherwise.
As Rabbi Jachter quoted from the Satmar Rav, “the Chafetz Chaim limited his permission to the study of Tanach and Mussar.” As mentioned earlier in the article, the CC did so because the women otherwise would “deviate entirely from the way of Hashem and the Torah”. To extend that to, not only permitting but actively encouraging, talmud is simply absurd.
In fact, the MO’s claim to “need” this for their women – when no Orthodox women needed this, not then and not now – means that there is something very rotten with MO education and “culture” – and they should fix that (i.e., become Orthodox, of course) and then their imagined problem of this “need” of talmud for women would also be solved. Kind of interesting that none of them seem to notice that. But that’s anyways all nonsense; it’s not needed, and all the Orthodox women who don’t need it are the biggest proof that this imagined need of MO is nonsense.
Rabbi Aharon Soloveitchik was, like his father-in-law, a “Religious Zionist”, which means that his opinions are also irrelevant to Orthodox Judaism. Regardless, even if it were true, as he claims, that “Chazal only prohibited coercing women to study Torah. If, however, they choose to learn Torah, then they deserve full support of the community”, that would not at all justify setting up “Beit midrash programs”, or talmud lectures in Stern College, that encourage women to do so. This is both disingenuous and silly.
As Rav Aharon Kotler wrote, Rabbi Dr. Soloveichik was responsible for all the tuma in America. Just become Orthodox already and drop the idol and all the silliness.