Pesach Preparation Delusions

Tricking ourselves into believing in the big Passover payoff

The Passover Preparation Myth

In a season of slavery to redemption, the weeks leading up to Passover would definately fall into the former category. Cleaning out drawers and cars; endlessly reminding kids that, "Yes, that is chametz, and No, you may not take that into your room!"; trying on ALL of EVERY child's Shabbos clothes to figure out what needs to be purchased; cooking, scrubbing, kashering... the list is endless. But ask most Jewish women (and hopefully men), and you'll likely hear that the work is not all that bad, or if it is it's worth it. For most people, the beautiful Yom Tov is a payoff that justifies all of the pre-Pesach prep.

But is that really true? Is the degree of a person's Yom Tov pleasure or meaning related to how much they sweat to prepare for it? Sure, a person who worked hard for anything is able to take pride in a way that someone else can not. But does a kid who comes home from yeshiva or college right before Pesach enjoy the holiday that much less than his parents who've been slaving over the preparations for weeks?

I'd venture to say not much.

Why, then, do we who prepare delude ourselves with the belief that our work will magically transform our Pesach experience? Because we have to. If we didn't play this little solitaire mind game, we'd either resent the cleaning tremendously or just not do it at all. (There are also the few who are able to manage the ideal and stay mindful that they are fulfilling a mitvah of Hashem, but they aren't the point of this post, so I'll delude myself, too and pretend they don't exist.)

Why Yeshiva Parents Have to Love Their Children More

To understand this phenomenon a little better, let's look at the way parents fool themselves. You don't have to have children of your own to know that they are quite the little money pits. If you send your kids to yeshiva, in these days of "tuition crisis," you might as well be volunteering for your 50-hour-a-week job, or spending your days surfing, because you probably wouldn't be brining home much less. Some parents even choose to not have more children just because of the cost. Simply put, kids are an investment that only a mother can love. Beyond the financial aspects, Time's John Cloud reports:

Researchers have known for some time that parents with minors who live at home report feeling calm significantly less often than than people who don’t live with young children. Parents are also angrier and more depressed than nonparents — and each additional child makes them even angrier. Couples who choose not to have kids also have better, more satisfying marriages than couples who have kids.

And yet, people are still popping out kids, at a rate high enough (thankfully, for humankind) to continue populating the entire planet, and they like it. But what's interesting is that parents do not just enjoy parenting despite its high cost. In a paper published in last month's Psychological Science psychologists Richard Eibach and Steven Mock show how parents actually think more highly of raising children because of it. In two separate studies, parents rated the rewards of parenting and intent to spend time with thier children significantly higher after reading about the costs of parenting than others did after reading about the financial benefits. Funny, right? But again, parents have no choice but to delude themselves this way.
The reason is that our brains don't like conflicting messages about our behavior. People do what we do because of a particular motivation; when we are confronted with information that challenges that motivation that creates what cognitive psychologists call cognitive dissonance. Think of two people singing in harmony. Pretty… until one of them sings just a little bit higher than his note and, “Ouch!” it hurts to listen. Unless he lowers his pitch or the other guy raises his, the sound will be jarring. The same with parenting: (a) parents are raising children, but (b) it’s not worth the money, that’s a tension that the parent mind needs to fix. So they delude themselves. What else can they do? Admit to themselves that all the money they spent was not worth whatever benefit they get from their children (long-term care insurance is cheaper)? They can’t exactly opt out anymore. And so, parents who read about the costs of raising children inflate the rewards to relieve the conflict: yes, it costs a lot, but that’s not a challenge to my behavior because it’s worth it. The greater the cost (read: yeshiva tuition), the greater the delusion
The game that Pesach prep'ers play with themselves is no different. You're throwing body and soul into cleaning, covering, kashering, cooking, etc., while the little voice in the back of your mind is saying:

This is crazy work. I can't believe we said no to his parents... and invited them here! Why am I doing this instead of going to the Homowack? Is there even a Homowack? There has to be some reason I'm doing it this way!

And so the Passover prep delusion is born: "I know I'm working hard now, but come Seder night, and I will be enjoying my yom tov more than anyone else in the room."

Happiness is Happiness and Meaning is Meaning

The question, then, is "So what?" Does it really matter if my appreciation for a yom tov, or the meaning I find in my work for it, or even my appreciation of the joy of child-raising is really an attempt to justify my efforts? Does that make them any less real? Psychologist David DeSteno thinks not:

Dan Gilbert, whose lab has been researching the predictors of happiness for quite some time... suggests otherwise. The happiness we arrive at through higher order cognitive processes involved in dissonance reduction is no less rewarding, no less authentic, than that born from other psychological mechanisms. This idea has received recent support. We know that other types of motivations (like the desire to fit in) can change the reward value of stimuli, so then why not the motivation to justify a monetary cost?

After all the analyzing is done, maybe the best thing is just to take what comes. Welcome inspiration wherever you find it and embrace meaning even if it is a product of you're own mind. Rationalizing the work of Pesach preparation will certainly make it pass more easily, and it can even be channeled to create a meaningful, mindful act of avodas Hashem (serving God). Unfortunately, it won't do much for chopping onions, and if you think you're selling your kids on this idea, good luck (the little money pits...)!