Indeed, I got the halakhic answer there for most of what I was unsure about, but for the sake of full disclosure I should add the following point here: if you referred me there, it stands to reason that you yourself also stand behind the ruling there and do not disagree with it. And precisely because of that, in order to avoid a mistake—so that people won’t say, “Since he referred him there, we can infer that he agrees with the entire responsum”—it’s important to filter out and remove from there the things that, as someone who knows you, it is clear to me (to the extent that a philosopher may aspire to maximal certainty) that there is a passage there you do not agree with. So it is important to bring it up, and tell me whether I was exactly right. Here is the quotation:
“There is a profound difference between Torah wisdom and secular wisdom. For Torah wisdom is the divine wisdom whose aim is the essential rectification of man and the world, in the light of faith and morality, and it cannot be properly understood without fear of Heaven and cleaving to God. By contrast, the other fields of wisdom deal with understanding the external side of the world and improving it—in the study of the soul, society, history, economics, nature, and the body. These fields have great value, and therefore they are considered a branch of divine wisdom, but they are external wisdoms in comparison to Torah wisdom, and to understand them it is not necessary to be God-fearing.”
A. Was I right? B. If so—and apparently so—do I need to explain why this is not acceptable to you, or is that self-evident to everyone?

I sign off on every word (except the word “morality.” Morality is human and universal).

Blessed is He who directed me to the mark.

Just to clarify (you really didn’t hit the mark): I sign off on every word of Rabbi Melamed.

Rabbi Melamed is making two claims. One is that there is a fundamental difference between the content of Torah wisdom and the content of the other fields of wisdom; the second is that Torah wisdom cannot be properly understood without fear of Heaven and cleaving to God. That second claim, about the necessity of fear of Heaven and cleaving, is his main claim, and the first is an introduction and justification. Do you sign off on the second claim as well? On what basis?

Empirically.

What I meant was that you oppose this sentence, especially: “and it cannot be properly understood without fear of Heaven and cleaving to God.” And if I was wrong about that, then I hereby publicly announce that I was hugely mistaken (presumably מתוך excessive arrogance), and as they say, I basically dug a pit for myself and need forgiveness, repentance, and atonement.

As I wrote, I absolutely do not oppose it. I completely agree. Though there is no need here for mysticism.

“Please let not my lord be angry, and I will speak but this once.” Out of humility, with a bow and prostration, now that it has become clear that I was mistaken—well then, “It is Torah, and I need to learn.” Let our rabbi teach us: what is different about studying and understanding something in Torah as opposed to any argument and understanding in other fields of wisdom? There, the Rabbi’s position is well known, clear, and justified, repeated in various formulations in posts and comments, but all amounting to one thing: it doesn’t matter what background noise there is, nor a person’s views, inclinations, character traits, or status—what always matters is, in the Rabbi’s words, “whether his arguments are interesting/instructive. That’s what matters.” If so, it is hard for me to understand why every Torah argument should not be granted that same privilege as well.

I don’t understand the question. Of course none of that matters, and if someone raises an argument I will address the argument and not the person making it. What does that have to do with the question whether someone who isn’t in the matter will be able to develop deep insights or not? I’ll listen to him and discover that he’s mistaken.

Rabbi, I will explain the questioner’s intent: why can it not be properly understood—Torah—without fear of Heaven and cleaving to God? In Rabbi Melamed’s words! What does fear of Heaven (and cleaving to God) have to do with logical understanding of intellectual Talmudic arguments?

And just as you don’t need fear of Heaven (and cleaving to God) in order to understand physics or chemistry or mathematics, so too understanding Torah seemingly does not require this extra element. So why is Rabbi Melamed making understanding Torah conditional on additions that are not actually necessary?? That was the questioner’s intent, as I understand from this thread.

You’re forgetting that Torah isn’t mathematics, and for this you need “intuition”—what the category of the law is, etc.—and in order to align with the Torah’s view you need fear of Heaven.

After all, even the medieval authorities (Rishonim), who were greater than us, were probably not greater than us in sharpness and analyticity and so on, but rather in their intuitive ability to understand Torah.

In Responsa Mishneh Halakhot, part 15, siman 74 (p. 86), he discusses this question at length and rules that one does not recite the blessing. For if in Torah wisdom he is an ignoramus—about whom it was said that one may tear him like a fish—then there is no distinction in the fact that he knows secular wisdom.
It is also said in the name of Rabbi Hutner of blessed memory that he expounded before Rabbi Herzog that over him one could recite the blessing, since besides his knowledge of secular wisdom he also knew Torah wisdom; but over other educated Jews one does not recite the blessing, and on the contrary, it is “a forbidden mixture.”

The book Mishneh Halakhot is found here: https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=ec0c5a3a6ac1c173a3dc699b12cd5cf25bcacb3c700441dfc1cc637ec3259d73JmltdHM9MTc0OTUxMzYwMA&ptn=3&ver=2&hsh=4&fclid=137ca297-0660-613a-399b-b49607b960f6&psq=%d7%9e%d7%a9%d7%a0%d7%94+%d7%94%d7%9c%d7%9b%d7%95%d7%aa+%d7%97%d7%9c%d7%a7+%d7%98%d7%95&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly9oZWJyZXdib29rcy5vcmcvNjgyMTc&ntb=1