Was I shocked and appalled by last week’s Torah reading? The slave and the ear and the awl and the doorway and the impossible choices?

Not really. The Torah has all kinds of crazy stuff that doesn’t apply to our world today.

Am I shocked and appalled at the acquittal of former president Trump at his impeachment trial? 

Appalled, yes. Shocked, no. 

It’s easy to say that, depressingly, things haven’t changed that much since ancient times.

Like: we’re still learning how to love, after all these millennia. 

But maybe, yet again, the problem is our expectations. 

Writer Alain de Botton, interviewed on (yes, again) Krista Tippett last week (and why exactly am I feeling apologetic about this?) talks about sentimental optimism.

He defines sentimental optimism (so American) as the unrealistic expectations we have that set us up for disappointment and cynicism. It’s an idea put out by our culture of what things are “supposed to be” like, especially concerning love; we prepare for the “Big Day,” as if it were the culmination of our love when it’s really just the beginning. 

He says that as the human race, we’re also really just at the beginning of learning to love (hard to deny, if you really think about it; we’re not that good at it). 

And true love is rocky; it’s hard work because we’re human. 

The opposite of “sentimental optimism” is “pessimistic realism,” which De Botton defines as the way things are, and he says it’s a much better way to live. 

You say, A better way to live?? I don’t want to be pessimistic! I want to be hopeful! That’s the American Way!

But! When we are pessimistically realistic, we know that difficulties are going to occur, so we prepare for them. 

When we’re not realistic, we get angry when things are difficult--specifically because we haven’t prepared (says the source), especially when they're things we think of as mundane. We don’t give legitimacy and prestige to these mundane difficulties; our narrative is that we’re arguing over “stupid” things like the laundry.

On the societal level, it’s a common thing for people to say, with shock and appal, “How can (fill in the blank) have happened? It’s/they’re so stupid!” 

But it’s precisely the little things we have to pay attention to; airing our dirty laundry is exactly what’s happening now in American politics. It’s become obvious that we can’t ignore the little things and think they will just take care of themselves--leave the “bad apple” in the bushel and say “It’s only one.”

No! It will spoil the entire bushel! We have to prepare for the inevitability of the rotten bushel and remove the bad apples in order to change our culture.

The Trump administration didn’t appear in a vacuum. It took years--no decades and decades--of preparation on the part of the Republican party to set this up.

Just as there has been preparation for greed and hatred, there must be preparation for love. 

Even Torah tells us to prepare!

This week’s parsha begins with this idea presented to the Jewish people: “You’re starting on a difficult journey, so…make for Me a dwelling place that I may dwell amongst you... 

“And this is how you are to prepare it: with gifts that people feel impelled to bring--from the heart--to decorate this portable dwelling place for My Presence to travel among the people through their difficulties.” 

God is very precise about how to prepare this sanctuary. He doesn’t just say, let the people bring whatever they want...their old rags (dirty laundry isn’t an option) and whatever garbage they can manage to find. 

No! It’s with beautiful things of value: gold, silver, copper, special stones, skins, yarns, incense, oils, acacia wood—real sacrifices for people living with practically nothing.

And there are instructions to tie together curtains with clasps, “to make it one.” It says this twice: to make the dwelling place One.

How do we make ourselves, humanity, as One? How to learn to love one another? How to prepare for a world of love that we haven’t accomplished yet. 

A functional society, says De Botton (just like a functional family), requires love and politeness and the capacity to look for charitable reasons for others’ behavior (without making excuses or excusing). 

So, first, be careful what we expose ourselves to, De Botton says; as social beings who are very sensitive to outside influences, when we listen to angry voices, we become angry—and there’s an overabundance of angry voices out there to listen to.

Yes, let’s take some advice from Torah: to carry us through these difficult times, prepare beautiful sanctuaries for ourselves, carry them within us so that “God” may dwell among us—and make offerings from the heart (perhaps some peaches with cream?) a central, daily practice.