לא תבערו אש. הזהירה תורה על ההבערה טפי משאר מלאכות מפני שאינה נראית כל כך מלאכה ושמא יאמרו לא נעשה מלאכה אבל נבעיר האש ונזמין הכל כדי לעשות בזהב ובכסף מיד לאחר השבת לכך נאמר לא תבערו. ובמסכת שבת נחלקו רבותינו איכא מאן דאמר הבערה ללאו יצאתה ואיכא מאן דאמר לחלק יצתה: לא תבערו אש, “do not kindle fire;” the reason that the Torah singled out lighting a fire on the Sabbath as a forbidden activity by naming it, is that to the average person lighting a fire seems hardly as something that can be called “work.” If it had not been specifically singled out, people might have said that they would certainly not perform activities even remotely connected to creative activity, but they would never have dreamt that lighting a match would be considered by the Torah as on a par with that of sowing, ploughing, or kneading a dough, for instance. In the Talmud, tractate Shabbat folio 70, there is a dispute about whether this activity has been mentioned specifically in order to tell us that the penalty for violating it is not the same as for other work prohibitions, or that it has been singled out to tell us that even such an activity is forbidden on pain of the death penalty.