“that your perspective becomes a reflection of ahavas chinom in this instance, as it so clearly has been in others.”
Thank you for the compliment! I disagree with your premise however. I am not stating my opinion on the hashkafa of Mercaz HaRav as I am not qualified to have an opinion on it, although I will say that from I know of the place, they are extremely ehrlich and Yarei Shamayim and definitely acting L’sheim Shamayim.
But in terms of your premise, I have to respectfully disagree. I think that there are Gedolim who would say that some of the philosophies and places within the Orthodox world are not genuine Torah philosophies, and therefore it would not be a problem for someone to say this. There are definitely schools that I have been involved with that I felt did things that were not based on a genuine Torah philosophy although they may have felt so.
I was once told by a certain chashuve Rav that I should stop working in a certain institution since he felt that they were doing things that he felt was problematic. He made sure to let me know that that didn’t mean that the place was passul just because there were certain things they were doing that were problematic (and in fact the only reason he told me to stop working there was because he thought it would be harmful for shidduchim.)
I think that your premise may be based on the Western concept of pluralism – there is an attitude that disagreement always involves sinah. I don’t think that is the Torah attitude. There have always been Gedolim who disagreed with other Gedolim and other approaches and did consider those people who adhered to them to be misled. It is possible for someone to have Yiras Shamayim and be a tzaddik and yet mistakenly think that a certain hashkafa is a Torahdik hashkafa.
I may be mistaken, but I am under the impression that many Gedolim would not consider zionism to be a Torahdik hashkafa, although they may consider many of its followers (such as those in Merkaz HaRav) to be Torahdik people and they would not consider Religious-Zionists to be “off the map” of the Orthodox world.
Just to be clear – I do not know with certainty that the Gedolim say this, although I think they do, so it should just be taken as an example (it also may depend on one’s definition of “zionism”).