I'm gonna say something which might be controversial, but it needs to be said:
The tendency in *some* spheres of Orthodox Judaism to venerate figures in Tanakh and Chazal, the Geonim, Rishonim, and Acharonim (as well as more modern Rabbis) and to treat every anecdote and statement they ever made as Halacha and as something good, and to accuse anyone who tries to humanize them and point out their character flaws or statements they made that are factually wrong, of heresy.....that tendency borders on uplifting human beings to godhood which is tantamount to Avodah Zara. *Especially* post-Tanakh figures in a post-Neviim world.
You can't go around treating the Rabbis like they were omniscient and all-knowing. They were incredibly intelligent and skilled people but they were still people, and sometimes they did or said things that were outright stupid or wrong. And that's okay! Because a Rabbi in Talmudic times saying something factually wrong about astronomy or goats or women doesn't negate their expertise in other realms of Halacha, just like some Nobel Prize winning physicist shouldn't be taken as an expert on botany or psychology or anything outside of their realm of expertise, and it doesn't negate their intelligence or accomplishments to say that. I say this as someone who grew up Orthodox and still considers himself Orthodox. I am a Rabbinic Jew. Rabbinic Judaism is what allowed us to survive as a people in a post-Temple world. I love Rabbinic Judaism!
The Rabbis who made Rabbinic Judaism happen were incredibly knowledgeable about many things, but they were still people, and they still got things wrong. I'm not even talking about things relating to morality or social attitudes (such as racial and gender relations), I'm talking about verifiably untrue statements about anatomy or biology or geology or astronomy. And I think when we encounter these Rabbis's false statements, it's extremely unhelpful to either pretend they didn't say them, or to try and rationalize them in a stream of apologetics. Sometimes people are just wrong. It's okay. It doesn't change their contributions to Halacha and to Judaism as a whole, it doesn't mean we should throw out everything they've ever said, but it's actually quite possible for someone to either repeat the false science of their time or to just make an ignorant statement that comes from a lack of experience in whatever subject they're discussing. I think it's theologically dangerous to accuse people of heresy when they point out that the Rabbis weren't perfect. I think it's theologically dangerous to act like the Rabbis were infallible- that's how we get messianic cults.
Relatedly (hopefully not derailing), this is my main issue with people who hold by "all the patriarchs followed all the mitzvot."
Like, I for one find the most value in the stories where our ancestors are imperfect. Those are the stories that teach us not only how to act, but that even the best among us can make mistakes. Erasing all of that because we want Abraham et al to be the most perfect humans who ever lived does us no good.
