Our Gemara on Amud Aleph discusses the well-known Jewish legal principle of a form of double jeopardy; one is not sentenced to be flogged and obligated to pay for the same act. This is also known as Kim ley bederabbah miney - the person takes the more severe punishment and is exempt from additional punishment.

Sefer Shama Shelomo (Bereishis) asks, “If so, why did God punish Adam with both mortality and having to eat bread by the sweat of thy brow?” Ben Yehoyada (Shabbos 55b) answers based on a Midrash Rabbah (19:10), which offers a parable to explain Adam’s sin:

וַיֹּאמֶר מִי הִגִּיד לְךָ כִּי עֵירֹם אָתָּה הֲמִן הָעֵץ (בראשית ג, יא), אָמַר רַבִּי לֵוִי לְשׁוֹאֶלֶת חֹמֶץ שֶׁנִּכְנְסָה אֵצֶל אִשְׁתּוֹ שֶׁל חַבָּר, אָמְרָה לָהּ מַה בַּעֲלָהּ עוֹשֶׂה עִמָּךְ, אָמְרָה לָהּ כָּל טוּב הוּא עוֹשֶׂה עִמִּי, חוּץ מֵחָבִית זוֹ שֶׁהִיא מְלֵאָה נְחָשִׁים וְעַקְרַבִּים שֶׁאֵינוֹ מַשְׁלִיטֵנִי עָלֶיהָ, אָמְרָה לָהּ כָּל קוּזְמִיקוֹן שֶׁלּוֹ שָׁם הוּא, וּמְבַקֵּשׁ לִשָּׂא אִשָּׁה אַחֶרֶת וְלִתֵּן אוֹתָהּ לָהּ. מֶה עָשְׂתָה הוֹשִׁיטָה יָדָהּ לְתוֹכָהּ, הִתְחִילוּ מְנַשְׁכוֹת אוֹתָהּ, כֵּיוָן שֶׁבָּא בַּעֲלָהּ שָׁמַע קוֹלָהּ מְצַוְוחָה, אָמַר לָהּ שֶׁמָּא בְּאוֹתָהּ חָבִית נָגַעְתְּ, כָּךְ אָמַר הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא לְאָדָם הָרִאשׁוֹן הֲמִן הָעֵץ אֲשֶׁר צִוִּיתִיךָ וגו'. 

“He said: Who told you that you are naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from it” (Genesis 3:11). “He said: Who told you that you are naked? Did [you eat] from the tree…?” – Rabbi Levi said: This is analogous to a woman who needs to borrow vinegar, so she goes into the house of a snake charmer’s wife. She says to her: ‘How does your husband treat you?’ She answers her: ‘He treats me with all generosity, except for this barrel that is filled with snakes and scorpions, to which he does not allow me access.’ She says to her: ‘All his gems are there, and he wants to marry another woman and give it all to her.’ What did she do? She reached her hand into it, and they began biting her. When her husband came, he heard the sound of her screaming. He said to her: ‘Did you, perhaps, touch that barrel?’ So, the Holy One blessed be He said to Adam the first man: “Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you [not to eat from it?]”

Ben Yehoyada says this parable shows that death was no more a punishment than what happened to the woman who was in the parable. It was a consequence and side effect, but not really a punishment. Once man sinned and allowed materialism and physicality to enter his existence, he became susceptible to death.

I will add, a careful reading of Moreh Nevukhim (I:2) expands on this idea and also explains why all of us must suffer for Adam’s sin. It is because we re-enact this ourselves by our own attachment to physicality. In theory, if we fully attached to God we would transcend mortality. When we do not, we all commit Adam’s sin. (By the way, students of the Moreh should read and re-read this particular chapter of the Moreh. It is the “Rosetta Stone” of the Moreh and hints and many secrets.)

A simpler answer to the question is bought down by Sefer Daf Al Daf: We don’t apply the entire principle of Kim Ley etc to heavenly judgment. 

Why should there be a difference? I believe this has to do with function of Jewish civil law and heavenly law. Jewish civil law has a function to maintain order primarily and only secondarily to administer justice to a degree, knowing the limits of humans to arrive at truth. Thus Bais Din is very conservative in how and when it metes out punishment. The main focus is less about absolute Justice so long as some form of societal order is maintained. Hence the fact that once in a while, though the Jewish court hardly ever gave the death penalty (Mishna Makkos 1:10), in unusual circumstances it can impose mass sanctions without due process and impose martial law. See for example, Sanhedrin 45b-46a, where several examples of extra judicial punishments and activities are described based on circumstances that threatened the social order. However, logically, the goal of the heavenly court is simply to balance the scales of justice in the way that God ordained the universe. Therefore, there is no such thing as double jeopardy, or anything else that might be designed to compensate for the inaccuracies of human judgment. Heavenly judgment is simply about truth and justice. And that is where we come full circle, because in the Heavenly realm, since it is pure justice, punishment and consequence are really the same.

Translations Courtesy of Sefaria, except when, sometimes, I disagree with the translation

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