I just wonder how we can separate the halacha from those relationships with others, compassion, good fathering and marriage, kindness, justice, and humility. If someone neglects these things, how can they be in touch with the letter or the spirit or the core Jewish texts?

I don’t know much about Rav Elyashiv, so I can’t speak for him. Nor about the Haredi movement; I wouldn’t be surprised to see in some quarters those stringencies without precedent, unjust discrimination and small awareness of other people and societies, or deep attachment to details of practice from previous generations that meant little to those who went before or to the agreement of the Torah. The opposite problem also exists, here and elsewhere, where parts of the covenant law are diluted for convenience and wide acceptability. But as long as Judaism really is Judaism, its communities remain in an ongoing conversation that reaches beyond themselves.

Saying that such paper-thin (though intricate and brilliant) rabbinic scholarship, with no reference to kindness, justice, and the value of humanity, is the characterising feature of Haredi law would be in certain ways an insult. Do you think? Either from us against their community, or from them against the thoroughly important values of the wider Judaism that their individual lives and culture have aimed to hold. How can you have perfection in the halacha if you can’t even come near to the basics underlying the discipline?