Miriam Peretz's Speech – An Appendix to the Columns on the Tanakh (Column 138)

From the moment I heard the speech and the Ministry of Education's response, I was sure you'd write a post about it, and I even knew more or less what it would say, so apparently we didn't learn anything from this post either (correct and simple things) :).

🙂 Maybe we should suggest to the Ministry of Education that they teach this post too in schools, for the sake of the sacred balance (for after all, no one has a monopoly on _).

I agree.
But this post, too, no longer teaches anything; you repeat this idea in every possible form.
Study…
A package of independent opinions….
Any one of your students could already write this post.
So, we're waiting for the slim trilogy on religion,
Give a clear conception of Judaism.
Forget the criticism; give something that says something new, not criticism.

Indeed, there is not much novelty in Miriam Peretz's words. But one can take her and her words as a model of firm and powerful spirit. Of faith in the Holy One, blessed be He, of connection to the Land, and devotion for the sake of the people, etc. If you are looking for a frontal intellectual lesson with novel insights, then perhaps you will not find much novelty in her words, but there is a great deal of spirit in them. It seems to me that this is somewhat more important for the people of Israel at this time than a few more reflections—however interesting—philosophical ones for an academic elite.

Who spoke about importance? My discussion was whether this can be called study. This is a continuation of previous discussions that took place on the site (and perhaps you are unaware of them). What is more important? That can be discussed separately, and I mentioned that too in my remarks.

The Ministry of Education does not disagree with you on the question of whether Miriam Peretz's words are trivial. It also agrees that there is nothing new in them.

It disagrees with you about what counts as "study." In its view, even repetition of familiar things falls under the category of "study," just as in the view of many people, reading the Bible and understanding it in a trivial way is "study."

Indeed, correct.
It should only be noted that this is not repetition but internalization.

At the beginning you asked, "What exactly does the Ministry of Education want us to learn from Miriam Peretz's speech?"…
The question that should be asked is: "What exactly does the Ministry of Education want to teach everyone from Miriam Peretz's speech?"
And here there is already a significant difference, and it is not merely semantic.
You tend to examine things from your own point of view—a mature perspective, seasoned by life experience, rich in knowledge—as though the target audience were a narrow and defined stratum of the population to which you/we belong.
But the students in schools are also an enormous mosaic of laymen, ignoramuses, and people without knowledge.
Even in our areas, things seem nauseatingly trivial to adults…
What seems to you to be internalization, repetition of banal and familiar values, etc., is not such for most young students.
I definitely see importance and value in teaching and learning (yes, learning!) from the speech, at the expense of the adults' boredom.
By the way, I am inclined to think this also regarding the study of the Bible.

So perhaps the discussion can be wrapped up with the question whether internalization is included in the concept of study or not. You also agree that internalization is important, so this is an empty discussion about the concept of study—what practical difference does it make? Call this an orange and that a clementine.

I suggest that if they are already teaching this speech in schools, then while they're at it they should also teach how to vocalize words correctly.
The words (random ones, it should be noted) that were vocalized here and there throughout the speech were almost always vocalized incorrectly, in a way that was jarring and obvious to the eye.

With God's help, 11 Iyar "8

All the schools must be closed. Everything taught in them is obvious and known. The alphabet is known; the numbers are known; arithmetic operations are known; the rules of algebra and geometry are known; the laws of nature are known; the rules of syntax and grammar are known; history and geography are known. Therefore the schools should be closed, and only a handful of students should remain in them, who can carry out groundbreaking research!

Regards, S.Z. Levinger, Minister of Education!

"Greater is ministering to Torah scholars than studying it"—that is the value behind the words of this giant woman. It is true that in the pure and dry logical sense there is no study here. But in terms of instilling values—absolutely there is. Her ability to inspire a spirit of hope and uprightness out of grief and the pit—no one can take that away from her! Period. Study is a general word. Everyone takes it to the place convenient for him. But in the end, every single moment, we are learning. We are creatures whose essence is learning. All the giants of the Bible were people who were a source of inspiration to others. There are a few such people in every generation. Anyone could have written Miriam Peretz's speech. But then it would no longer have been Miriam Peretz's speech… The whole idea is the unwritten figure standing behind the speech.

Indeed, there was one man for whom everything was trivial, and that was our father Abraham, whose kidneys were like the two tablets of the covenant and who knew the entire Torah on his own.

Even so, Abraham knew that what was simple for him was not self-evident to others, and therefore he commanded his household after him to keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice, and did not think that his descendants would understand everything on their own!

Regards, S.Z. Levinger

Miriam Peretz's "Israel Prize" should be revoked.

If Miriam Peretz's speech adds nothing whatsoever to us, since it is all obvious and known, then her life's work too is worth no more than the peel of a garlic clove. After all, the reason for awarding her the prize was explained by the committee:

"The Israel Prize for Lifetime Achievement for the year 5778 is awarded to Mrs. Miriam Peretz, an Israeli educator who lost two of her sons,
one of the finest soldiers who fell in Israel's battles. Since then, Miriam Peretz has dedicated her life to education and to transmitting the Jewish and Zionist heritage, conducting lecture tours before youth and IDF soldiers, and even going out to communities around the world, all this in order to illuminate our path and strengthen our hands"…

So what, then, does Miriam Peretz do with her life? She goes from city to city teaching trivial, worn-out, simple, and well-known things. So why does she deserve a lifetime prize for that? What has she contributed to humanity?
Nothing. Nada.

(By the way, she herself was surprised by the commotion around her speech (in an interview on Army Radio, if I remember correctly), and said that she repeats these things in every lecture she gives.)

Then let it not be called study but clarification of intuition, knowledge, or apprehension. The disciples of the prophets were not called the prophets' students. Standing before God and asking for a clearer apprehension regarding what connects us to Him is important in itself. A clearer apprehension can be analyzed and one can point specifically to what exactly was newly gained here, but not everyone feels the need or importance to do so constantly. And note that with respect to young students this would definitely count as learning something new, in light of the many details that will be newly learned and sharpened for them regarding the values and outlooks under discussion.

And pointing to the importance of values is also learning. The weight given to each value and the proportions in relation to other values is something that requires learning, even if it is done intuitively. This is something most important that one should convey great appreciation for. To my mind this is also what is more important and interesting, much more than logical pilpulim that come from standing outside. A child who washes his hands for the sake of Heaven is more precious in my eyes than any atheist philosopher, even if the latter's writings are 'studied.'

Of course that's learning!

Learning through the personal example of character refinement, love of the other even when there is disagreement, coping with crises, love of Israel

It is not enough to know intellectually that one should be united and accepting, etc.
One also has to implement it.

We came into the world not only to inflate the intellect but also to work on our character traits and become better, and that we learn from Miriam Peretz big time.

Without referring to the speech (which I did not read), you wrote: "Study is the acquisition of new information or a new skill," and it is very plausible that what is present here is deepening of the skill: further exposure to things said as they were said and by the person who said them deepens recognition of the importance of those things and of the centrality they ought to have in life (just as riding a bicycle a second time improves the skill that existed after only one ride, without giving you any new explicit insight).

At least in one speech at the Israel Prize ceremony there was a real idea:
http://gush.net/dk//1to899/704daf.htm#Heading10

The ending about Hasidism is interesting, after mentioning the introduction in the book Mesillat Yesharim. "And true piety, the desirable and cherished" (ibid.)…
The question is whether this was with hidden intention or by chance.
If it was said intentionally, it seems that true piety is being attributed to this speech.
If it was said by chance, it was said without commitment, like the post itself, which seems to have been written without commitment, against the non-commitment of all postmodernism and the like.
And the thoughts struggled within me; if so, why do I need this

They could just as well have taken a draft of the speech and used it to wipe dishes after washing. That too is an important and useful act.
Indeed, I am asking a theoretical and not a practical question: is such a thing called study (a practical implication: whether one should recite the blessing over Torah study for it). As I wrote in the title, this post is a continuation of the posts about the Bible.

Well, that's the newspaper and not Miriam Peretz.

Well, I see no point in responding to that demagoguery.

I do not see any clarification of any intuition here. Everything is clear and firm and in place. At most there is internalization here, not clarification and not repetition. And again, this is certainly important, but it does not constitute study. We discussed all this at length in the posts on the Bible and Hasidism.

I disagree with you. There was no deepening here of anything.

We also came into the world in order to do kindness, so is doing kindness study? Fine, we've already argued about this in the past.

I did not identify the new idea there.

When the thoughts finish running around, it would be worthwhile to formulate them and put them in writing. Do not rush.

"Is such a thing called study (a practical implication: whether one should recite the blessing over Torah study for it)"
So one does not recite the blessing over Torah study on learning (!) Bible?

By the way, I support this.

Schools exist mainly for the Ministry of Education and the teachers. It is the most inefficient institution in the world. It causes far more damage to students and to the human spirit within them than it helps. This institution is good only for mediocre students (2% of the population). The talented should be taught individually, each according to his inclinations. School destroys their desire to learn through the mediocrity that characterizes it and its teachers (what kind of talented person goes to be a teacher? And rightly so. It is not really teaching; it is lecturing), and the weak should simply be sent to work or to learn a manual trade after they have learned basic literacy and arithmetic (and I know that even that they will not learn well). In any case, all the other things you mentioned they do not learn there, and the only thing they do learn there is to hate those fields of knowledge.

I explained this in the posts on the Bible. The Oral Torah has sanctity of content, whereas the Written Torah has sanctity of the text—the wording. Therefore, when one studies the ideas of the Oral Torah, that is Torah study (in my humble opinion, only when one learns something new or reviews something old—not when one does so in order to internalize, for then it is part of commandment observance and not Torah study. And in my humble opinion the same is true when one studies in order to know the halakhah as a means for observance; although here most decisors do not think so regarding the blessing over Torah study—see Magen Avraham and Mishnah Berurah on the blessing over Torah study for women). But regarding the Bible, one recites the blessing only when studying this specific text. The very engagement with it is Torah study.
Therefore one cannot say that studying the Bible is not Torah study, but certainly there is here neglect of Torah study in quality (in yeshiva jargon). Something like R. Hayyim of Volozhin's distinction in chapter 7 of Sha'ar 4 between the will of God (=halakhah and Talmudic analysis) and the word of God (=aggadah).

Precisely as someone who identifies with the spirit of what you say, from the height of my age I tell you that in practice I find it hard to see an alternative that does this better. Of course, if there is a good and exceptional teacher he can do more, but as a systemic solution it is hard to see something better. Therefore your conclusions are hasty, although I tend to agree with the spirit of what you say.

I am not being hasty. I too spoke only in principle. Or more precisely, in practical terms for the long range and not the short. I too would not touch the system right now, but only because rapid revolutions cause damage (cf. Robespierre). But indeed this should be a practical aspiration—something like Zionism, roughly speaking—which needs to be carried out slowly and without mass firings. And an immediate practical implication of what I say is stopping all the educational initiatives that crop up every other day from the various Ministries of Education over the generations, most of which are ridiculous because they will not change the product of the system in the slightest, and most are cosmetic changes. Likewise, cutting the ministry's budget by at least half. It is a foolish brute-force idea that if we invest more money, the achievements (however defined) will rise proportionally enough to justify it.

Correction: "…will change the product of the system…"

When the Gemara says one should divide his years into thirds, one-third Mishnah, or when it says "let him repeat," it is clear that it means repetition. So it follows that there is Torah study in repetition, and one recites the blessings over Torah study for it.

A beautiful speech

First, I too wrote that there is Torah study in repetition, and for that we do not need the Gemara you cited (and it is not written there either). But that is when one does it for the sake of remembering, and not merely to chant mantras for the sake of chanting, and perhaps also not when one does it for the sake of internalization and performance (for then it is an instrument of commandment observance).
Second, I do not see from where you learned that it is speaking there of repetition. See Kiddushin 30a, and in Rambam and Shulchan Arukh there is no hint of this in the Gemara or the halakhic authorities. On the contrary, the division is: to study Scripture, to study the material of the Oral Torah (=Mishnah), and to study conclusions derived from the material (=Gemara). Studying the material is not repetition but studying the material itself.
And this is the language of Rambam, Laws of Torah Study 1:11:
A person is obligated to divide the time of his learning into thirds: one-third in the Written Torah, one-third in the Oral Torah, and one-third he should understand and comprehend the end of a matter from its beginning, derive one thing from another, compare one thing to another, and understand by the principles through which the Torah is expounded, until he knows what is the essence of those principles and how to derive from things learned by oral tradition what is forbidden and permitted and the like; and this matter is what is called Gemara.
However, in halakhah 10 repetition does appear (to learn so as not to forget).

Nice, but not new. Like Miriam Peretz's.

Halakhah deals with knowing what to do; aggadah with the intention of thought. Halakhah speaks clearly; aggadah hints.
Both in halakhah and in aggadah, the words of the Sages are an expansion of what is written in Scripture. Why was the expansion needed? Because understanding diminished and doubts multiplied, in order to be exact about the details, so as to succeed in learning one thing from another when the soul and human reality became more complex than in ancient generations, in order to enable learning and teaching, keeping and doing, for the many. What are these things like? Scripture is the root, the Mishnah the trunk, the Talmuds and their commentaries the branches, halakhah the fruits, aggadah the seeds.

To Aharon—greetings, sir,

There is no need to revoke it; one can balance things by awarding a lifetime-achievement prize also to R. M. A. for his simple and self-evident words, and honor him with a speech in which he describes how hard the banal ceremony is for him, burdened by the shallow masses. The speech would be worthy of being taught in schools, though as I already explained above, they should be closed because of the triviality of the study material.

Or perhaps let us compromise: we shall revoke from her the Israel Prize, which is fit only for people who prevail with God and men, such as the polymath, producer of pearls, Prof. Amir Hetsroni, may his light shine, and Miriam Peretz will be consoled with the 'Aaron Prize,' to be given to people who love peace and pursue peace, who love people and bring them close to Torah—and to them, alas: 'Ascribe to the Lord, you banals, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength'!

Regards, Trivius the Banal from the Wilderness of Zin-ality

I mean learning not of new explicit insights, but something closer to learning how to ride a bicycle—you improve the skill through exposure, and in the end learn to ride a bicycle without acquiring even a single new explicit insight. The subconscious simply internalized the theoretical knowledge: before, you knew in theory how to ride a bicycle; now you have learned in practice how to balance your weight and muscles (and in our case, if the learning succeeds, then in the end the children recognize the importance of the above values even more than they did before. Before they knew how to recite the things; now they have learned how to balance the muscles of the soul).
If you do not consider learning to ride a bicycle to be "learning," then you have simply created a new dictionary of your own, and this is an unimportant argument (an argument about dictionary definitions is not an interesting argument).

And as a side note: in my view, this is a very important part of Torah study—even when you have forgotten a particular sugya, a certain approach still remains with you in the subconscious, a certain skill, a certain stance toward reality, even when you cannot repeat it in words (even when you have forgotten, you do not return to the same state you were in before the study).

Almost all the texts studied in schools are classics, with no novelty at all.
For adults this brings nothing new, but studying this speech is an excellent way to convey values and content to schoolchildren.

That is not an insight but a skill, and I was careful in my words to write insights or skills. Her speech imparted no skill in any subject.

With God's help, Thursday of the portion "to warn the adults concerning the minors," 5778

To R.M.A. and Eilon—greetings,

I was glad to see that my suggestion, made sarcastically, was taken by you seriously. In any case, since most people are of the "average" sort, and even the two percent of gifted students need a great deal of trivial knowledge before they begin innovative and groundbreaking research—then the bread of the schools has not gone stale even in the realm of study.

I do not agree with Eilon's proposal that students who have difficulty studying should be tracked outward and sent to work. After all, even in most jobs basic education is needed; once they demanded a matriculation certificate as a minimum threshold, and today they are already talking about a bachelor's degree, if not higher. And nowadays there are successful methods for diagnosing and treating learning disabilities, and not infrequently it turns out that students who "struggle" are deeper in their thinking, and that their "lack of understanding" stems from a sharp difficulty that they do not know how to define clearly.

The presence together of students at different levels of talent can become a blessing when the stronger students are enlisted to help the "weaker" ones, and in this way develop social excellence alongside academic excellence. The classroom will become a place where achievements are reached not out of competitiveness but מתוך partnership and solidarity, with the "strong" student serving as a "mentor" to his fellow—he too grows on the academic plane, since when one has to explain and cope with questions, one understands better, in the spirit of "From my students more than from all of them."

Working in groups was practiced in the traditional heder (I brought several examples in my comments on Prof. Nadav Shnerb's article, "To Impart Knowledge—Not to Educate," on the Musaf Shabbat – Makor Rishon website). Dr. Mordechai Margaliot interpreted the Sages' instruction this way: "And if he does not read—let him be teamed with his friend," that the stronger students should help the struggling student (his words were said in the entry "Rav Shmuel bar Shilat" in the Encyclopedia of the History of the Greats of Israel and were cited there).

School is a place not only for study and imparting knowledge. School inculcates learning habits and develops students' sociality. The ability to create a "learning society" means that students practice operating as a group, and the cohesion of the group assists in improving the academic achievements of all its members.

Regards, S.Z. Levinger

Regarding Eilon's remark that a talented teacher will not go to be a schoolteacher—the solution is a track of advancement.

My teachers at "Dugma" joined the lecturer staff at Lipschitz College. My teachers at "Netiv Meir" later became noted rabbis and professors. Rabbi Yitzhak Shelat was my mathematics teacher in fifth grade. My chemistry teacher in sixth grade, Hanan'el Mack, later became a professor and a scholar of the Talmud and aggadic midrashim; my literature and English teacher, Yom Tov Assis of blessed memory, I met years later as a professor and first-rate scholar of medieval Spanish Jewry.

The fact that a schoolteacher has research ambitions helps him make classroom learning more interesting by challenging students with questions. And conversely—someone who knows how to make learning interesting for children and teenagers can create interest in learning among adult students.

With God's help, 25th of the Omer "

As I explained, the classroom is the best framework for advancing students, both academically and socially. But in order for the educator to be able to "hold the class" and give personal attention to every student, one must uphold the Sages' instruction in Bava Batra, as ruled by Rambam and Shulchan Arukh: the maximum number of students that can be loaded onto one teacher is 25. Beyond 25 students, an "assistant" is appointed (a reish dukhna, in the language of the Sages), and when one reaches 40 students—it is necessary to split into two classes!

When no more than 20–25 students stand before the teacher—he can succeed!

Regards, S.Z. Levinger

Or more precisely, Miriam Peretz herself declared that she would say simple things. It was the Ministry of Education, rather, that for some reason took them as something for deeper study, for its own reasons.

It can be defined this way: there are three channels connected to learned content. 1) Sources of inspiration—not necessarily new material, but material that ignites imagination, stimulates thought, arouses feelings and creativity. 2) Study itself—analytical analysis of learned content, separating the essential from the secondary, drawing conclusions. 3) Internalization—using various cognitive, behavioral, and emotional tools to deepen the conclusions and turn them into an organic part of the learner's personality.

I don't really think the Ministry of Education intended to teach the speech. It seems to me it went more like this. Someone was impressed and said, as a flourish meant to praise the thing, that the text was so good it ought to be taught in school. And then some journalist came along and took the matter one step further and already turned it into a properly inflated journalistic question, and directed it with deadly seriousness to some deputy of a deputy minister in the Ministry, and he, out of confusion and lack of preparedness, said, ah, yes, certainly it is worthy of being taught, and in a low voice, with great seriousness, added, ah, yes, we will consider adding it to civics studies, and even added a phrase of his own: Israel's students should know who the mother of sons is, hallelujah. And now seriously. The speech was moving—as a summary, as a result. The woman summed up the path, the trajectory, of people like her, and many felt empathy with her path, and with the sorrow of losing sons, and we were all moved here, because our hearts are not made of stone. The speech was pleasant, cohesive, the kind of thing fit to unite on such a day. There is no need to imagine the possible speech of another prize recipient; he gave it a few days earlier. In sum, your column is funny, entertaining, and ever since a friend informed on it to me, I make sure to read it. I learn a lot from it, but writing talent and the ability to entertain a person's spirit are not lacking from it either.

Many thanks. It is certainly possible that in our small God-given corner of the renewed Middle East, that really is how it happened.

In honor of the prophet of Tekoa, may his honor shine,

This is a good summary, except on the "semantic" plane (see below): I am not sure that the third type is study. Not every change in personality is study. I do not think anyone would tell you to recite the blessing over Torah study for character work (not even for the study of mussar, but let us leave that aside for the moment) or for a trip through the jungle, even though these too change me and cause me to internalize things. Just as contemplating a telephone pole whose shape gives me inspiration does (the example that accompanied the discussion about Hasidism and poetry). In fact, there is almost nothing that does not change me and "teach" me something in the third sense. But not every positive action, and not even every action that causes a change in me, is study.

It is important to understand that this is not merely a semantic distinction and not merely a practical implication for the blessing over Torah study. After all, the Sages tell us that Torah study is equivalent to them all, and they mean study—not character work and not commandment observance (even though observance too helps internalize within us Torah values and halakhah). That is, there is something in study in its second sense (and perhaps also the first) that has special value. One does not get that from study of the third type, even though in terms of results it is sometimes the most influential. My motivation for this post is the insight that cheapening the concept of study leads to disdain for and neglect of study of the first type, and to seeing the third as an adequate substitute (Bible studies). That is, in many cases the third comes at the expense of the first two.

I now think this is part of the phenomenon of "connecting" that is so widespread in our circles. There is something positive in it, because people want to internalize the study and not engage in it in an alienated and cold way. But precisely this desire itself leaves you focused on yourself and does not allow you to reach the texts you are studying and adopt new things from them. You get stuck in confirming and reinforcing the aspects that currently seem right and understandable to you, and thus block yourself off from new ideas and new realms. So it is both in study and in commandment observance, as is known. The next stage is that people are unwilling to observe what they do not "connect" with and what they do not identify with. In my eyes this is part of the same phenomenon. For everything you internalize from Miriam Peretz's speech is the very same values that were in you from the outset. You will not learn anything new from there, and therefore the "study" of her speech is in fact part of the phenomenon of connecting—that is, strengthening my current state. And that is exactly the opposite of study, whose main point is acquiring other things, things that do not yet exist in me.

Therefore it was important to me to write a post that sharpens this point that seems at first glance merely semantic. Many thanks for your message, which helped me sharpen this point, because many here think my claim is mere semantics, and it seems to me that until now I had not succeeded in clarifying (perhaps even to myself) why this sharpening seems important to me.

Agreed. But it should be noted that internalization is the most efficient tool for relearning the sugya or comparing it with other studies, the best "device" for study there is.

Paragraph 2, line 2:
…once the threshold condition was a 'matriculation certificate,' and today…

Paragraph 4, line 1:
Group work was practiced in the traditional heder…

There, line 3:
…that the 'stronger' students should help the struggling student (see in the 'Encyclopedia…'

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School is not only a place for study and imparting knowledge…

One of the values this speech represents is:
'It is good to die for our country.'
This value idea appears in her words quite explicitly.
And the very choice of her for the Israel Prize represents this idea: a bereaved mother who gives value-meaning to the death of her sons sees the death of her sons as a merit, not only as a bereaved mother who accepts the terrible judgment upon herself.
Certainly there are other mothers who lost their sons in an accident, and accepted the judgment and went on with productive lives, but they cannot give value-meaning to their loss.

This value of the sanctity of the land over the sanctity of the individual's life is not accepted by a large part of the people.
The Ministry of Education wants to 'teach' this value anew to "wayward" parts of the nation who are not strengthened within the education minister's scale of values.

Educating toward a value that was not accepted by a person—is that not 'study'?

That is an interesting claim. But when one examines it more deeply, in my opinion it does not hold water.
One has to discuss what "It is good to die for our country" means. Does a person go in the first place in order to sacrifice his life? I assume most of the public would not agree to such a value. Even in the IDF's values there is value and obligation to take risks, but not to sacrifice one's life (see my article here on the site on lo taguru—the duty of a public office-holder). After the fact, when the son dies defending the land, almost the entire public accepts this as a positive value. This is not unique to her, though she represents it more intensely. In any event, I do not see what in this speech teaches anything on this issue. Everything she said is agreed upon by everyone. I saw no argument there that anyone on earth (except for a marginal minority) would not accept. Therefore, when you break this saying down into small change, you will see that there is nothing new here.

I agree that this is an interpretation, and whoever does not want to accept it can interpret differently any quotation I bring,

but for some reason the people at Shmuel interpret her speech this way, and certainly interpret this way the motive for the prize,
and for some reason right-wing people will deny this interpretation,

this is very reminiscent of the religious (Haredi)-secular dispute over the interpretation of halakhah with respect to women,
the secular person will see in many laws a representation of discriminatory values,
and the religious person will engage in casuistry and show how mistaken and superficial it is to see halakhah as discriminating against women,

It looks like "value-denial"
a person holds certain values but is not willing to admit that he holds them because it is not accepted in the world.

In the end the Haredim will be feminists, after years of declarations that halakhah is egalitarian?