Deuteronômio 21:21 Comentário: Rashi, Tur HaArokh, Rabbeinu Bahya & Siftei Chakhamim

וכל ישראל ישמעו ויראו AND ALL ISRAEL SHALL HEAR AND FEAR — From here we derive the law that his execution requires public announcement by the court: “The man named so-and-so is stoned because he was a refractory and rebellious son” (Sanhedrin 89a).

וכל ישראל ישמעו וייראו, “and the whole people of Israel will hear about this execution, and they will become more G’d-fearing.” According to Nachmanides this is the Torah’s way of making clear to the people that G’d’s objective with this legislation is even more aimed at the people on the whole than at the victim, as it is hoped to make the carrying out of this legislation totally unnecessary in the future. Execution of the recalcitrant Torah scholar, זקן ממרא, who may even have been objectively correct in his interpretation of Torah law, is also based on the fact that the authority of legally appointed judges must be respected, even if until the final handing down of the judgment there is freedom to argue the merits of the verdict. Public interest as interpreted by the lawgiver, the Torah, sometimes overrides what we in our limited vision consider the infringement of the right of the individual. Stamping out the roots of religious disputes by nipping such dissent involving civil disobedience in the bud, prevents the forming of schisms and different groups ultimately each upholding a version of the Torah of their own. [Some of the wording is my own, though not the thrust of the message. Ed.]

ורגמוהו כל אנשי עירו, “and all the men of his town will stone him, etc.;” in this verse the Torah tells us only of the penalty. Where did the Torah spell out the prohibition, i.e. the warning? After all, we have a principle that the death penalty by man can be enacted only if we have both the warning not to commit the sin in question as well as the penalty spelled out in the written Torah. The verse applicable is the warning not to eat something על הדם, “the result of which could be blood-guilt,” i.e. death by execution (Leviticus 19,26). No one other than the בן סורר ומורה is in line for execution for merely eating a forbidden meal. This is the meaning of the words זולל וסובא, that he ate meat to the value of 50 dinars in a ravenous manner, and washed it down with half a log of wine in the manner of drunkards.