joseph- mea culpa only in that you were correct in quoting R’Aharon”s words. It does noe mean I (or others) have to agree with this view. In this, we would be going back to the manifold discussion what is ‘daas torah” and ’emunas chachomim” and when is it applicable. Not the time and place for this now.
squeak- so-called “modern orthodoxy” has two pillars. One is that we can and should interact with the world, including getting secular education and working in the general society. This is ABSOLUTELY R’ SRH Hirsch “shittah”.
The other pillar is the recognition of Israel as being the instrument of the Almighty in bringing back the Jews to their ancestral homeland. On this, we do not know what R’ SRH Hirsch would have done (he died in 1888) but a number of his followers were indeed anti-zionist in the early stages. In that, you may say that Hirsch is not a precursor for modern orthodoxy.
I think many of the so-called “modern orthodox” would take very vehement exception in your characterization of modern orthodoxy as being one of ‘permissiviness”. Actually, I do not know where you take this idea from. The fact that some of the tenets of MO is to ‘fit in with the times’ means nothing. Throughout history, we have always “fitted in with them times”. I don’t see you or others wear a turban or long ‘djelabbah’, although the Rambam and all other Sefardim wore this for centuries.I don’t see you wearing the pointed hats of the sixteenth century either.
I also think that the Rambam and others studied “alien’ philosophies and ,for sure, studied medecine.The Ramchal,auhtor of the Mesilas Jeshorim, was steeped in the local culture and so were all the Rishonim in Spain.We have always adaptd to our surroundings,while keeping the basic tenets of our traditons and halacha.
It is only in the last two centuries that, suddenly, nothing can be changed and everything must be frozen in anno 1780 or thereabouts.
BTW, I am writing all this as one who loves the chassidische “levush” but I realize that it is a tradition, not “halocho lemoshe misinai’ (who certainly did not not wear a shtreimel)