Why Is There Harsh Rebuke in the Torah? Part IV

In the previous article, we learned that there were strong historical reasons for the Torah’s harsh tone of rebuke in Israel’s earliest days. It was intended to strip away the impurities of surrounding nations and shape a new people. Because the Torah is eternal and relevant for all generations, it is important to understand the role and necessity of rebuke even for our own time.

Human Nature: Why Fear Comes Before Love

By nature, people are lazy. They don’t always invest effort in improving their lives or doing what’s best for them. However, when danger or pain is involved, they exert tremendous effort to avoid it.

A person may neglect their health for years, ignoring good habits that would improve their quality of life, yet at the first signs of pain, they rush to doctors and seek remedies.

How many of us turn to God, searching for truth and repentance, without any suffering at all? It's rare to find righteous souls like Avraham, who sought God purely out of gratitude and goodness. Most of us first encounter Him through fear, struggle, hardship, or loss. If life were always easy, would we ever stop to ask deeper questions?

Fear comes before love because it leaves a stronger and more lasting impression. Every parent and educator knows that children cannot be taught discipline and self-control without consequences. The challenge is not whether to rebuke, but how and when, and in what measure.

Love follows fear. As a child grows, they eventually realize that the discipline, the warnings, and even the punishments were for their own good. If the rebuke was given wisely and proportionately, this awareness awakens love and respect for parents and teachers.

The Torah as Humanity’s “User Manual”

The Torah is God’s blueprint for humanity, tailored to the human soul and its natural tendencies. Since human nature requires work out of fear before it can mature into love, the Torah is written accordingly.

As the Chovot HaLevavot (Duties of the Heart, Gate of Love of God, chapter 10) explains: “Often the Torah mentions fear of God before love of God… ‘What does the Lord your God ask of you, except to fear Him’ (Devarim 10). Fear comes first because it is the nearest step to love, and one cannot reach true love of God without first experiencing fear of Him.”

This is divine wisdom, speaking to the human soul in the way it is most capable of being shaped.

Why Gentle Words Alone Are Not Enough

A gentle promise of good rarely has the same power to move the soul as the fear of danger. Fear is the strongest and most immediate emotion we have, and without it, humanity would not survive.

A father who speaks only of pleasant things, but hides the dangers from his curious child, does not truly protect him. Human nature constantly pushes boundaries, testing limits until it reaches a red line.

The Torah’s harsh warnings — like the four capital punishments of Jewish law (stoning, burning, decapitation, strangulation), were not frequently applied in practice (as the Talmud says, Makkot 7a), but they established those red lines clearly.

No words of love alone could have kept us from the gravest sins as effectively as the Torah’s frightening language and dire consequences.

Building a Strong Value System Through Fear and Consequence

The Torah’s harsh rebuke created a foundation for our understanding of right and wrong. Without it, many would see the commandments as mere “suggestions.” The graphic depictions of punishment reveal the reality of divine justice, and keep us away from dangerous transgressions.

We live in a generation that dislikes criticism, but without it, how would we know the difference between right and wrong, or the severity of each?

The Torah provides a hierarchy of values. Some commandments, like not committing idolatry or murder, are so severe that one must sacrifice their life rather than transgress them. Others carry the penalty of karet (spiritual excision) or lashes. Still, others may be set aside for the sake of higher obligations.

Consider Shabbat, for example. It can be set aside for saving a life (pikuach nefesh), but the Torah also declares that desecrating Shabbat deserves stoning. Although courts have not executed anyone for over two thousand years, this knowledge instilled in Jews across all generations the seriousness of Shabbat observance.

Without that weight of consequence, would so many Jews have sacrificed comfort, livelihood, and even safety to keep Shabbat throughout centuries of persecution?

If eating leaven (chametz) on Passover was not punished with karet, would Jews have been so diligent to rid their homes of every crumb under such difficult circumstances?

History proves the Torah’s wisdom: even without enforcement by courts, its harsh words carved unshakable values into Jewish hearts, preserving our identity through exile and oppression.

From Fear to Love: The Torah’s Eternal Balance

Rabbi Yaakov Moshe Segal HaLevi teaches that in our generation, God emphasizes the prophecy of Malachi: “On the day that I act,” says the Lord of Hosts, “they will be My treasured possession. I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him” (Malachi 3:17).

In our times, there is no coercion by Jewish courts as in ancient days. Instead, we learn about punishments mainly to understand the order of severity in sins, while our relationship with God now leans more toward love and compassion.

God also removed the tyrannical kings and empires of history, which once served as metaphors for fear of the King of Kings. We are now being prepared for redemption, when service of God will be primarily motivated by love.

Rebuke as an Eternal Tool for Growth

In recent articles, we explored two historical reasons for the Torah’s harsh rebuke:

1. For the Israelites leaving Egypt: They needed sharp and uncompromising boundaries to separate them from the corruption of Egypt and Canaan, shaping them into a people capable of becoming a light to the nations.

2. For all generations: The detailed punishments engraved a strong system of values into Jewish life, ensuring that commandments like Shabbat and Passover survived even without enforcement.

These are only external, historical, and psychological explanations. Behind them lie far deeper spiritual reasons and mystical dimensions hidden in the soul of Israel and in the cosmic plan of redemption.

We can attempt to understand rebuke logically, at the level of simple interpretation, but much remains concealed in the realms of allegory, mystery, and divine secret. The Torah rarely reveals the full reasons for its commandments, to prevent us from reducing divine truth to human logic.

Commandments may have rational benefits, but those are only the visible “feet” of something far taller, whose “head” is beyond the clouds. Rebuke works at both levels: it shapes our psychology, but also operates in higher spiritual worlds we cannot see.