Reply To: Can the severity of a sin be learned from the severity of the punishment?

that has been my point all along that we have been mushpa from western thought”
Of course but that isnt necessarily bad.
No. It’s not bad per se. However it’s important to know that this is true. Because then when we think we are using our “critical thinking ” we have to realize that our thinking is tainted by non Torah values.
Not necessarily anti torah values but not necessarily in sync with and therefore when we try using our own compass, we may end up far off.
That was the point of my original contention.

Additionally it’s important for another reason.
There is intrinsic and there is situational.

So for example, stealing has an intrinsic Negative value.
When you steal the only food source of a pauper it’s situational negative value has gone up. The cat of stealing has not intrinsically gotten worse. But In this case you’ve done more with it.
Sort of like a bomb
If you detonate the same bomb in a field it will do very little damage. If you put it into a room of a building it will do a lot of damage. If you detonate it at the supporting pillar of the building, it will collapse the building.
The bomb has not gotten more powerful, you’ve just utilized it differently.

So to here. My point is the punishment will indicate the intrinsic severity of the crime.
Situationally of course things will not always fall into even rows.
For example
A fellow needs to be מחלל שבת to save his life. So no the way he decides, might as well eat a ham sandwich that I’ve always hankered(I just love this word) for.
He will get punished for the ham sandwich while getting rewarded for the חילול שבת .
That doesn’t change the fact that shabbos is the more severe crime.