You are of course joking, and the quip is called for under the circumstances; but it is a serious and difficult question to try to define the difference in the character of learning in the yeshiva and the boundaries of what is permitted and forbidden there as opposed to the academy, and likewise the difference between religious academics and secular academics, and when one can identify an agenda in research. (I can imagine a “researcher”—with the stress of course on the first syllable—who would claim that the Rema’s family had an economic interest in selling diesel for heating mikvehs. Am I exaggerating?)

On these questions it seems to me that far too few articles have been written. Once Prof. Menachem Kahana wrote something about this. If anyone knows of another good, readable article on the topic, I’d be happy to hear.

Wishing you a peaceful Sabbath as it approaches.

It seems to me that there is no question here of permitted and forbidden. In my view, explanations of this sort are completely legitimate, but they are not relevant to the halakhic discussion. Even if we assume that the Rema’s position is based on the climate where he lived, in order to decide whether to adopt it or not, one must still examine it on its own terms and in itself—what it is based on, and whether it fits the sources. This is unlike studies—stress on the first syllable—that hang everything on circumstances and context, and unlike apologists who claim that all our rabbis were ministering angels untouched by context and influenced only by essential considerations. Neither these nor those are the words of the living God.
Thus, for example, many explain the stringencies of the Tosafists in the laws of sanctifying God’s name by the Crusades, as opposed to Maimonides and the sages of Spain, who ruled in a more moderate and lenient way. If one takes this explanation seriously, then seemingly there is no dispute in the world. Each person is a product of the circumstances in which he acts, and if Maimonides had lived in France he would have ruled stringently, and the Tosafists the opposite. If so, there is no point in discussing their dispute, and when I want to know what to do, I should simply examine whether my circumstances are similar to those prevailing in France or in Spain. The methodological assumption of halakhic discussion is that we discuss the reasoning of the sides and decide accordingly.
And again, the conservatives explain that there is no dependence on context, because the medieval authorities were ministering angels who took circumstances into no account. But the truth is that context certainly does have an influence, and nevertheless these influences are usually not relevant to the halakhic discussion, which needs to be conducted on the plane of reasons. So here too, both sides are right and both sides are wrong. They are right in the sense that there is dependence on context, and right that this dependence is not important for the halakhic discussion. And they are wrong in claiming that there is no dependence on context, and wrong in claiming that this dependence is relevant.
In places where one encounters a puzzling and unreasonable approach—one that does not fit the sources—there is room to bring contextual explanations into the halakhic discussion (an emergency enactment due to the circumstances). But usually this is done in order to explain why the position in question should not be taken into account—because it was said only for its own time and place.

There aren’t many who can analyze this the way you do. Do you have a detailed article on the subject that’s available online? Female students sometimes ask about it.

Thanks. Unfortunately I don’t have anything organized. In the past I wrote a few things that touch on related points. I’ll bring a few things here that I remember right now (there are surely more).

1. An article in Akdamot on the difference between yeshiva learning and academic research, which contains a bit of what is written here, but it presents a metaphysical conception that today I no longer stand behind:

בין מחקר ל'עיון': הרמנויטיקה של טכסטים קאנוניים

2. A continuation here (unpublished; more up to date for today):

'חוקר' ו'בן ברית' – לשאלת קיומה של הדילמה

3. Another article in Makor Rishon on the methodological difference between the disciplines:

על המתודה הראויה בחקר מחשבת ישראל ומדעי הרוח

4. An article in Tzohar on “what” versus “why”:

חכמה, בינה ודעת – על דיאלקטיקה של לימוד תורה ומחקר אקדמי

5. See also a short thread on my site:
https://mikyab.net/Responsa/On the Text and Contextualism: The Death of the Reader/

Is this written about in the book (which will appear speedily, amen)?

God willing.

Moshe wrote:

Yesterday I heard a wonderful example of how even Jewish law can go wrong when context is ignored.
Some young yeshiva fellow published a book and wrote there about the Arizal’s custom of kissing one’s mother’s hands on Friday night, that if one’s mother is not there, he should kiss his mother-in-law’s hands. He cited as the source for this a book from Morocco. But in practice, the reality in Morocco was that children were matched already at age 9 (!) because of problems with the authorities and the like, and from then on the boy would go live in the home of his future wife, where he would grow up literally like a son, and his fiancée’s parents served as father and mother to him. During those years they would examine how they behaved toward one another, that they didn’t hit each other… A great sage who knows the culture well told me that there is no doubt that the intention is that a boy who grew up in his fiancée’s home should kiss his mother-in-law’s hands—but Heaven forbid to permit this for an ordinary married adult. And perhaps they even wrote against this in books of the later authorities; I haven’t looked into it properly.
There are many more examples.