Answer

Hello Harel.
This is a painful question that has come up before. I think that, in my approach, taking the wind out of the sails of the commentators does not apply only to extreme issues but to the essence of things, and therefore even in Torah study it is hard to get from me “wind in the sails.” In general, my words are opposed to “wind in the sails,” because focusing on the philosophical and logical is essentially an alternative to acting out of psychological motivations altogether. Even in Torah study I adopt the words of the author of Eglei Tal in his introduction, but he himself also writes that it is excellent to enjoy it, but it is not excellent if one studies because of the enjoyment or for the sake of the enjoyment.
This is both a philosophical and a psychological clash. That is, our psychological makeup probably does not accommodate such rationalist conceptions together with psychological motivation based on enthusiastic holiness, but it seems to me that there is also a real logical-philosophical clash here. In other words, this is not merely a psychological effect that perhaps could hypothetically be overcome by taking a pill, but something unavoidable.
But as you wrote, my goal is not to arouse enthusiasm in people. To some extent, my goal is even the opposite: to cool their enthusiasm and move them from emotional conduct (which in my view is like that of animals) to action driven by intellectual-philosophical motivations. A good ontic recognition as opposed to a moral one is perhaps an excellent analogy, though not entirely precise, for this matter. Think about the difference between our attitude toward our parents and our attitude toward our friends or toward just some person in distress.
There is a price to developing such a psychological and philosophical stance, and I do not know how to bypass it or minimize it. But as a guiding light I have the words of the author of Havot Yair (who of course is only quoting): Plato is dear, and Socrates is dear, but truth is dearest of all.
Now I’m thinking that perhaps there is nevertheless a direction here—one that I still need to sharpen—through the distinction of the author of the Tanya, and my own following him, between the animal soul (which is driven by emotional motivations and drafts the intellect into their service) and the divine soul (which drafts emotion into actions powered by intellectual motivation). The more we internalize this and shift the center of gravity to the intellect, then even if we want to harness emotion in order to increase our strength in the directions in which we have decided to act, that would still count as an intellectual act. In other words, there is a possibility of using our emotional motivation as a tool in the service of the intellect. This of course lowers the flames (and perhaps this is a bit of self-deception, because I am creating enthusiasm artificially rather than spontaneously), but such a use of emotion may perhaps be legitimate, certainly for someone who practically needs it.
All this still requires clarification, and indeed at some point I will need to define these things for myself more clearly. Maybe it will even turn into a column. Thank you for the question and for the honesty.