Bemidbar 15:32-36 (Shelah) - Sticks and stones

Bemidbar 15:32-36 record the case of the wood gatherer. An anonymous person was found collecting wood on Shabbat and he was temporarily incarcerated since it was not known what was to be done with him. G-d then informed Moshe that the person was to be killed, and he was stoned to death.

This case raises several questions. What did the person do wrong? What is problematic about gathering wood? Why did Moshe (and Aharon) not know what to do with him? Also, was his crime so grave that he deserved to die?

The Talmud (Shabbat 96b) records three approaches to explain the person’s sin. Rav Yehuda in the name of Shmuel suggests that the person carried the wood four cubits in the public domain. An anonymous opinion (see Yerushalmi Sanhedrin 5:1) suggests that the person was found uprooting trees from the ground. And, three, Rav Aha the son of R. Yaakov suggests that the person was binding the wood/ branches together. With any of these explanations, the person was violating the Shabbat, and we understand why he was reported to Moshe. What then was Moshe’s confusion? The Talmud (Sanhedrin 78b) explains that Moshe knew the person was to die for his actions, but he did not how the person was to be killed. Thus, G-d told Moshe that he was to be stoned.

This approach from the Talmud is problematic. The idea that the person was uprooting trees or carrying does not fit the term gathering, as the Torah should have stated these specific infractions. The third idea, that the person was binding branches, could accord with the term gathering, but absence this case it would seem that the prohibition of binding is just by sheaves, which is part of the process of harvesting wheat. (See Shimon Eider, 1970, p.80, who quotes the Minhat Hinuch who claimed that the Rambam held that the prohibition of gathering sheaves only applies to food.) Possibly for these reasons, Luzzatto (on 15:32) writes that really the person did not violate the prohibition of work on Shabbat, but that he was punished for acting brazenly.

In addition, the idea that Moshe was in doubt as to the method of execution seems forced. Why did G-d not inform Moshe of this fact when Moshe was told about the death penalty on Shabbat? Also, 15:35 records that first G-d told Moshe the person was to be killed, and afterwards the method of execution, which implies that initially Moshe did not know the person was to be killed.  

Luzzatto’s approach is that the person did not violate any law of Shabbat, but what then did he do? Weingreen (1966) suggests that the case here is an example of making a fence around the Torah, as “the gathering of the wood on the Sabbath could have been construed as being a manifest prelude to the kindling of the fire.” (Kindling a fire is prohibited based on Shemot 35:3.) Weingreen explains that Moshe’s dilemma was whether this preparatory act was to be considered a violation of Shabbat and if yes, should it punished as severely as violations of the Shabbat? G-d’s answer to both questions was yes.

Gnana Robinson (1978) rejects Weingreen’s approach. She questions how the person could be punished so severely just for showing intent to violate a law, without actually violating the law. She suggests that the person was attempting to light a fire as part of idol worship and the gathering of the wood was part of the cultic act.  She claims the death penalty was for idolatry and not for violating Shabbat.  While this approach is possible, it leaves unexplained what was Moshe’s doubt as to the person’s guilt.

Milgrom (1990, p.37) claims the prohibition is the gathering itself, and this is derived from the prohibition of gathering the mahn on Shabbat, Shemot 16:22-30. Yet, the law by the mahn was unique since the mahn was a test of faith (see our discussion on Shemot 16:2-4, "A double test"), and hence it is not obvious that other cases can be extrapolated from the mahn, as maybe only gathering mahn was forbidden.                

Weingreen’s approach is the most reasonable.  Yet, still the death penalty seems very severe if the person only violated “a fence around the Torah.”  My guess is that to understand this case, one has to speculate as to the motive of the person in gathering wood. Was this a hobby? Did the person want the wood to make a fire to cook?  Both possibilities are doubtful. As noted by Ibn Ezra (on 15:2,32) and Luzzatto, it is more likely that the person was acting brazenly since the preceding section, 15:30,31, refers to brazen violations of the Torah, and cooking or just collecting wood would appear to be too insignificant to be considered brazen. I think one needs to combine Luzzatto’s comment with Weingreen’s approach. 

Maybe the case was that the person was gathering the wood to build a bonfire, and this was evident by the quantity of wood that he gathered.  Furthermore, the bonfire was to be a brazen demonstration that the person rejected the law prohibiting kindling a fire on Shabbat since the smoke would be seen and smelled by the entire nation. The gathering of a large quantity of wood demonstrated his intention to violate the Shabbat, and hence the people brought him to Moshe and Aharon.  Most likely, this brazen act to desecrate the Shabbat was a rebellion against the Torah after the people were punished due to their initial refusal to enter the land of Israel (see Altar, 2004, p.759), and hence the episode ends with the entire population repudiating the person when they stoned him.  (This could explain the significance of the opening phrase, the people were in the desert, in 15:32, see Ramban on 15:32.)

Following Weingreen, Moshe’s dilemma was whether the preparatory act of gathering the wood for the bonfire should be treated as a violation of an actual prohibition on Shabbat, and if yes, what should be the punishment? Usually a violation of a preparatory action would not entail death, but this was a unique case (see R. Yehuda, Sanhedrin 80b) due to the brazen nature of the bonfire.  Thus, G-d told Moshe that the person was to be killed by stoning. 

Death by stoning is a very common method of execution in the Torah (Vayikra 20:2,27, 24:14,23, Devarim 13:11, 17:5 and 21:21), but to modern minds it is considered barbaric. Yet in ancient times, it is likely that it was accepted as an appropriate method of execution.  Gregory Clark (2007, p.182) writes, "Earlier societies – the Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Incas – seem remarkably similar to ours in many of their details of their daily life, except for one thing: the apparently insatiable blood lust of the ancients.  The Romans seem the most depraved.  Criminals were executed for sport in the Coliseum and smaller town amphitheaters, often after being burned, raped, gouged, mangled or mutilated." Furthermore, he records an observation by Samuel Pepys, from London on October 13, 1660, that a criminal was "hanged, drawn, and quartered... And after he was cut down, his head and heart were shown to the people who responded with great shouts of joy." 

Why did the Torah not abolish death by stoning? Again we turn to the Rambam's (Moreh, 3:32) argument by sacrifices that G-d did/ does not really want sacrifices, but they had to be instituted since the people in those days could not conceive of worship without sacrifices.  (Is this need for sacrifices also due to the lust for blood?)  Maybe one could make the same argument by stoning.  If a person had been killed by "just being" beheaded or hanged then the people would have thought that the criminal got off easy, and hence they would not have appreciated the seriousness of the person's action, as in this case, the brazen act of desecrating the Shabbat by the wood gatherer.