Tanya Chapter 24, Class 04 (184). How could anything be worse than Avoda Zara? This idea is explored here using the form of ‘Teva’ (nature); each creation was designed with a Teva which limits (booth it’s good and) it’s evil. To defy the Teva one was created with requires free will, which only people have [Yidden regarding their 613 Mitzvos and (lihavdil) Goyim regarding their 7 Mitzvos]. This allows man to exceed his nature and become holy, but it also allows to fall lower than this nature; and when one does so, he is worse than (the spiritual) Avoda Zara, that is only ‘as bad’ as it’s nature will allow for.
