Only then will we hear the poetry in the prose. If God has been guilty of laws that are unlivable, it is because the guardians of Torah have contaminated their purity and suffocated their meaning and significance. An incompetent conductor can destroy the best of Mozart. Put differently, the charge of this midrash to us is to put Judaism to music, to make it a work of art. Torah can only be taught and transmitted through love, joy, and beauty.
Blessings are more effective than curses.
Coercion never breeds commitment, only resentment. Judaism has always conceived humanity as God's partner in the creation of cosmos out of chaos. And partnership is the note which ends the magnificent haftarah from Hosea, read on the Shabbat preceding Shavuot. Reconciliation between the prophet and his wayward wife, between God and Israel, leads to betrothal and fidelity. Then shall you be devoted to the Lord.