The Sabbath and Getting people back to work after a massacre

It must be tough to relax on vacation if you know that you'll be killed if you don't relax.  My first, modern-minded guess as to why Yahweh/Moses would want to impose such a heavy penalty on those who work on the Sabbath is that they wanted to remove any competitive advantage for those working on the holiday.  Or maybe it's simply that the Sabbath is the day when everyone is supposed to bring their sacrifices to the priests to supply them and to solidify the group identity of the Israelites.  Either reason would make sense.

Some of the Sabbath rules don't make much sense to a modern person living in temperate climes.  You can't light a fire in any of your dwellings?  That's fine so long as you can have gas or electricity, but orthodox Jews say that you cannot.  So how are Jews supposed to survive in cold climes?  The caveat to save life must pre-empt this rule.

Much of Ex. 35 and 36 is repeated verbatim from earlier chapters of Exodus.

After the priests' Yahweh-sanctioned massacre of the idolatrous partiers, Moses rallies the remaining Israelites to get to work creating the tabernacle.  Having escaped Egypt and wandered around in the desert, and then endured a massacre by fanatical priests, the remaining people were no doubt ready for some stability and work.  Moses's explicit instructions seem aimed at giving the people focus and purpose while they wandered after being sedentary in Egypt for 3 generations.  His request for donations of luxury items and skilled labor are likewise heeded until they had more than enough.  I imagine that, after the massacre, the people wanted to ingratiate themselves with the new ruling class of priests and artisans.

Bezazel (great name!) of the tribe of Judah was apparently a gold and metalsmith, and Oholiab (awkward name!) was a skilled weaver.  Moses assigns them the task of teaching metalsmithing and textile work to the other Israelites, thus re-training people as skilled artisans.

In Ex. 38:8 we learn that Bezazel made the bronze washbasin from bronze mirrors donated by women whose job it was to serve at the entrance of the tabernacle.  I wonder what kind of service they did.  It was all very organized and an inventory undertaken by the Levite priests accounted for all the metals taken from the people including silver taken in taxes during the census.  (Ex. 38:21-31)