Loving G-d’s Shabbos, threats not required

To the best of my counting (and I’m happy to hear a correction), the Torah mentions the concept of Shabbos once in Bereishis, six times in Shemos, four times in Vayikra, twice in Bamidbar (including this week’s parsha, Shelach) and only once in Devarim.

Add to this at least 16 times it is referenced in the remaining 19 books of the Bible, and we have a significant day in the Jewish calendar.

The story of the wood gatherer (m’koshesh eitzim) in 15:32-36, however, is one of the more disturbing references to the holy day in the Torah. And while it is Shemos 31:14 that is the pretext for the result meted out to the wood gatherer, it is nonetheless troubling to see someone put to death for violating the Sabbath.

The Talmud (Bava Batra 119a-b) suggests — somewhat approvingly — that the violator did so on purpose to teach a lesson to the people.

I have always found this Talmudic passage to be troubling. Since when is a person allowed to violate a capital crime in order to teach a lesson? The active principle in the Torah is that when a person is guilty of violating a capital crime, the punishment will be so public that “All of Israel will hear and fear [the punishment] and they will not continue to do such a heinous crime” (see Devarim 13:12, 21:21). There is no justification granted to those who purposely sin for the benefit of the masses! Their sins are not whitewashed in the Torah, but the Talmud does give the sinner an air of justification. 

It happens that even this principle (capital punishment as a deterrent) is hard to fathom in the two cases in Devarim — the former being an individual who tries to get others to leave the fold and worship idolatry, while the latter is the case of the wayward son who has become a glutton and violates the fifth of the Aseres Hadibros (Ten Statements) through disrespecting his parents.

How do we reconcile a person doing a simple act of carrying wood with a death penalty?