כי ימצא בקרבך באחד שעריך אשר ה' אלהיך נתן לך איש או אשה אשר יעשו את הרע בעיני ה' אלהיך לעבר בריתו. In general, the Torah speaks belashon zachar and Chazal tell us, as a matter of fact it's a Gemara in Bava Kamma, how we know that min hastam the Torah intends the dinim to apply uniformly to men and women. So the Ramban here is prompted by the fact that that general rule of thumb notwithstanding, over here the Torah mentions ish o isha.

והזכיר איש או אשה, says the Ramban, כי בעבור קלות דעת האשה תתפתה לעבוד עבודה זרה באותות ובמופתים שנעשו לפניה.

Ramban says that the feminine personality is more susceptible to persuasion, more amenable to being forgiving in a different context. That same middah, depending upon the context, is a strength or a weakness. In this context, it's a weakness that she's more prone, more susceptible to persuasion, to being convinced. What the Torah is describing over here, that someone may be induced to be oved avodah zarah, so be it ish or be it isha, either way the Torah proceeds to tell us that if it's established והנה אמת נכון הדבר so then והוצאת את האיש ההוא או את האשה ההיא וגומר וסקלתם אותם באבנים ומתו.

What's so interesting according to the Ramban's insight is that the Torah acknowledges the fact that a woman naturally, because of the way Hakadosh Baruch Hu designed the feminine personality, may be more, is more susceptible to this persuasion, but it doesn't make a difference. It's not any kind of extenuating factor whatsoever.

והוצאת את האיש ההוא או את האשה ההיא. What the Torah is teaching us according to this insight of the Ramban, a person can have a weakness, a susceptibility, and maybe at times it's even a susceptibility or a weakness that a person can't change, that's really embedded within him or her.

But the Torah expects us to have the self-awareness to know that and to compensate for it. Maybe let's try to see a couple of other marei mekomos on this theme and then just slightly, briefly elaborate a little bit. The Ramban talks about how rachmana litzlan if a person believes has a corporeal conception of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, he thinks rachmana litzlan Hakadosh Baruch Hu is physical, the Rambam says that's worse than being oved avodah zarah. Everything that the Torah tells us about being oved avodah zarah, that kavayachol it incites Hakadosh Baruch Hu's wrath, Hakadosh Baruch Hu reacts zealously, כי קל קנא ה' אלהיך.

that that the aveirah of of this distorted conception of Hakadosh Baruch Hu is is is worse many many times over than avodah zarah. Then the Rambam says but maybe you'll defend the person and saying that he he's not especially philosophically inclined and and maybe maybe intellectually he's prone to error in in theological matters. So the Rambam pushes back and says well you could offer the same defense of ovdei avodah zarah. The ovdei avodah zarah don't go into the beis avodah zarah spitting and saying sheketz sheketz veshiketzi well they obviously have a different conception of what the beis avodah zarah represents and yet you see that the Torah doesn't doesn't take that as some kind of extenuating factor that they mistakenly erroneously believe it.

Ay, but what about this tayna but maybe the person again isn't sufficiently philosophically inclined or or astute enough to be able to figure out the truth? So the Rambam says לכן אין צידוק למי שאינו מקבל מבעלי האמת בעלי העיון אם אין הוא מסוגל לעיון. He says no one's gonna indict anyone for for what that person's IQ is, for what that person's intellectual strengths or or weaknesses are. And it's not necessarily the case that that everyone is again sufficiently in this translation sufficiently a ba'al iyun that on his own he can sort out what's a correct conception and belief in Hakadosh Baruch Hu, a correct way to be עובד הקדוש ברוך הוא from what's egregiously wrong. And the fact that a person doesn't isn't able to do that himself, there's no tayna against a person for that.

The tayna against the person is that he doesn't defer to people who know better. But there is an assumption here, an assumption which is so basic and so self-evident to the Rambam here that he doesn't really articulate it, which is that the person is expected to have that self-awareness and that self-knowledge. A person is supposed to know where he stands. A person is supposed to know what his kochos are, but he's also supposed to know what his kochos aren't.

He's supposed to know how far his kochos extend, how far his kochos reach, but he's also supposed to know where they stop and what's beyond his ability to form judgments on. And in the theological context in which this Rambam is talking obviously it has applications in so many other contexts. The Rambam says what's indefensible is not that the person on his own if left to his own resources will will err. What's indefensible is that he doesn't recognize that about himself and doesn't defer to people who know better.

The common theme between those two sources the Ramban here, the Rambam, is that a person can have a weakness and in these two contexts we're about to see l'chora the more common context and in each of these two contexts it's not really a limitation that a person can change. It's not really something that a person it's hardwired into the into the person. But a person can and therefore is expected to have that self-knowledge, that self-awareness, being honest with himself about himself and compensating as the context warrants. The Rambam in the beginning of Hilchos Deos describes how there's a wide range of character traits and dispositions.

דעות הרבה יש לכל אחד ואחד מבני אדם וזו משונה מזו ורחוקה ממנה ביותר and they go from one end of the spectrum to the opposite end of the spectrum.

יש אדם שהוא בעל חמה כעס תמיד. There's some people who are so hot-tempered that they're always getting angry.

ויש אדם שדעתו מיושבת עליו ואינו כועס כלל.

Then there are other people you can't disturb their equilibrium.

יש והוא בעל תאוה—I skipped one example—יש והוא בעל תאוה שלא תשבע נפשו מהלוך בתאותו. There's some who are so hedonistically inclined that they can never satisfy their desires.

ויש שהוא טהור גוף ביותר לא יתאוה אפילו לדברים מועטים שהגוף צריך להם.

And other people are ascetics.

יש בעל נפש רחבה שלא תשבע נפשו מכל ממון העולם. Some people have such a voracious appetite for money that you can't satisfy that appetite כענין שנאמר אוהב כסף לא ישבע כסף. Ve-yeish mekatzer.

Some are so disinterested שדיו אפילו דבר מועט שלא יספיק לו ולא ירדוף להשיג כל צרכו. Others are so disinterested that they're not even interested in earning enough money to pay the rent and to pay the grocery bill. The Rambam says subsequently, obviously that both extremes are wrong, person's supposed to be in the middle. Where do people get these deos from or the extreme deos? The Rambam says be-chol hadeos, he says יש מהן דעות שהן לאדם מתחלת ברייתו לפי טבע גופו.

He said some of these deos are innate. The starting point is dictated, is determined by a person's DNA. He says others, ויש מהן דעות שטבעו של אדם זה מכוון ועשוי לקבל אותם במהרה יתר משאר הדעות. It's not in his DNA in the sense that he's born already with that disposition, with that character trait, but he's born with a predisposition to developing that extreme character trait.

And then the Rambam of course goes on to tell us that this fact notwithstanding, that we begin with regard to some character traits, dispositions so off-center, that that's again a natural innate weakness, he says, but the mitzvah is that a person has to work on himself until he gets himself into the middle. See here too, the weakness, the deficiency is natural. But again, what's axiomatic is that a person has the self-awareness to recognize that deficiency. And here it's not a question of it being something which is intractable, which a person can only compensate for.

Here, which is the more common situation, the more common context, that self-awareness reveals to us something that we can and therefore are obligated to correct. Such a tremendous yesod. Every בכל עת ובכל שעה that a person has to be honest with himself about himself. Again, it's a truth which is perennially relevant, fundamental, but obviously its relevance, its significance, its importance is magnified in the context of teshuvah.

So Rabbeinu Yonah writes at the very beginning of Sha'arei Teshuvah in discussing the negative fallout from procrastinating in doing teshuvah, Rabbeinu Yonah writes: v'ka'asher ye'acher lashuv when a person procrastinates in doing teshuvah, he's aware of the chet but he procrastinates. u'vo hachet leyado when that same chet will cross his path a second time, if he hasn't done teshuvah, yipol bemokesh k'vatchila, he's going to fall into the trap the way he did the first time. However, this time: ויגדל העוון האחרון מאוד, but the second, Rachmana litzlan, he says the second violation is much more chamur than the first one. It's the same chet, it's the same chet externally.

It's the same chet, but he says that in Dinei Shamayim, Rachmana litzlan, the second instance is much more egregious than the first one: ותולדתו רעה לפני השם. Why?

כי מראשיתו לא חשב כי פתאום יבוא היצר השודד עליו. He says the first time, so maybe it's taka, it is an extenuating factor at times that maybe the person had a weakness that he wasn't aware of. Maybe he had again a susceptibility that he wasn't aware of or not fully aware of and that's why, as it were, the yetzer was able to ambush him.

However, says Rabbeinu Yonah: אך אחרי אשר ראה דלות כוחו ואשר גבר יד יצרו עליו וכי עצום הוא ממנו. But when the first, but when the person has seen that weakness that he has, that he can be overcome by temptation in a certain situation: היה עליו לראות כי פרוע הוא. So then the person is supposed to have developed and acquired the self-knowledge to recognize that vulnerability: ki parua hu. That he's vulnerable, that he's exposed.

And what should his response have been? So maybe overnight: ולשית עצות בנפשו להוסיף בה יראת השם ולהפיל פחדו עליה ולהצילה ממארב יצר ולהשתמר מעוונו. Rabbeinu Yonah isn't necessarily assuming that the person will be able to correct that shortcoming instantaneously, maybe he can, maybe he can't. But even if he can't, says Rabbeinu Yonah, but a person can put into place counter-forces that will compensate. He can strategize, v'lashit eitzos benafsho, he can strategize להוסיף בה יראת השם ולהפיל פחדו עליה to instill within himself Yirat Hashem and in so doing that counter-force will be stronger than the force of the yetzer which induced him to chet.

And then Rabbeinu Yonah says such a gevaldige peshat in the pasuk in Mishlei. He says Shlomo HaMelech says in Mishlei: ואמר שלמה עליו השלום ככלב שב על קיאו כסיל שונה באוולתו. A dog re-ingests its own vomit and Shlomo HaMelech uses that as a mashal, Rachmana litzlan, for a fool.

כי הכלב אוכל דברים נמאסים.

A dog eats disgusting things. However, ka'asher yekienu, but when the dog then vomits it, nimas mima'us, says then what the vomit is even more disgusting than what the dog originally ingested. Which then means that when the dog again is shav al keio, so what it's ingesting the second time is more disgusting than what it did the first time. And that's the moshal Shlomo HaMelech is giving.

והוא שב עליהם לאוכלם כן עניין הכסיל כי יעשה מעשה מגונה. He says the first cheit is meguneh. Takeh, it is some something which is a davar meguneh, something which which should be disparaged. However, כאשר ישנה בו מגונה יותר.

But it's even worse, that same act when it's repeated is even worse, ka'asher be'arnu. The yesod hayesodos in in general in avodas Hashem and in particular in avodas hateshuva is that it begins with the self-awareness, the self-knowledge with each one of us being completely and totally honest with himself and about himself. What that honesty reveals to a person maybe maybe at times this is the miyut situation, maybe at times he can't change that weakness. And the avoda for him with that when he's equipped with this self-knowledge is to compensate for it.

A person can't change his can't change his IQ, he can develop whatever kochos he has, but but he can't he can't change the amount of raw ability that Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave him. A person can develop it and and and make the most of it and make the best of it, but he can't change the Hakadosh Baruch Hu's decision what what how much raw ability each person has. But a person can be and has to be aware of it and has to therefore compensate for his limitations which we all have and know when to defer and when not to to rely on himself. Ramban's example.

Other times, the most of the time what the self-knowledge and the self-awareness self-awareness teaches us are things that we can correct. But the yesod hayesodos is that we we have a capacity also for denial, we have a capacity for self-deception. It's part of the koach habechira to deceive oneself, to be in denial. But a person has the koach, a person has the koach to also be honest with himself about himself and ואין הדבר תלוי אלא בנו.