So, if I understand you correctly that we need to only learn halakhic conclusions without thinking how the authors came up to that, Maharal above seem to support the idea that learning how to think is also Torah”
I never said to learn conclusions; I said that learning psak that we don’t follow without the background of the sugya is not a good idea, and lefi aniyus daati, might not be a kiyum of limud hatorah. We spend years figuring out how the chachamim came to their conclusions; proper sevara, logic, that’s the foundation of yeshiva learning – I don’t see how anything I said contradicts that. I also don’t see anything in your post about the distinction between methodology and intention in the definition of torah lishma.
The oft-quoted rambam about not needing anything besides rambam is being abused in a similar fashion as to how the reform use the story in the gemara about how hillel told the ger “that which you don’t like, don’t do to your fellow”. The reform ignore all of shas and all other statements from hilel hazaken, and say that hilel is advocating humanism and that only bein odom lechavero matters. So too with this rambam, because if you look at the rambam in hilchos Talmud torah – meaning his halachik rulings regarding how one must learn, he makes zero mention of learning mishnah torah or any other sefer written by himself.
What the rambam meant is up for discussion; it could be he was referring to other meforshim such as the rif or ri migash, since they weren’t as comprehensive.
“As to calling “rationality” as “haskala”, I asked a deep Chabad scholar about some Rambam shita and Muslim philosophy and responded “Rambam was not afraid of admitting truth from any source”.”
Interesting how one of the greatest chabad gedolim in history, and one of the biggest gaonim period, wrote that every word in the moreh nevuchim is based on chazal. That was the Rogatchover gaon.
Chabad is, unfortunately, beset with enough issues of late that such a contention is not high on the list of עקירת הדת that we see becoming commonplace. Here is not the forum for such a conversation at lengthy, but actually, the atzmus elokus ideology is less monotheistic than Islam.