Everyone has their ups and downs. Mood depends on many things including the weather diet recent events quality and quantity of sleep food and exercise internal physical factors stress reduction practices and other things. Like Pesach.

Pesach affects mood by increasing feelings of pressure responsibility and in some cases panic. For some people this combination of Pesach-related emotions leads to a rather bad mood — one that can last for about four to six weeks (the days before during and immediately following Pesach).

Moody People

Although homemakers may be particularly hard-hit by the Pesach Mood spouses also feel the extra tension. There are financial pressures time pressures extra household responsibilities extended-family issues extra time at home with the children and all sorts of other holiday-related stresses to contend with. Everyone can feel out of sorts and somewhat irritable at this time of year.

Of course stress and pressure affects mood throughout the year — not just on  Pesach. A person can have work-related stress each and every day of the year. Child-rearing stress is an everyday all day affair. Shortage of sleep and other basic requirements of well-being is a constant plague in modern day living. In short pretty much everyone is a victim of chronic as well as episodic (i.e. holiday) stress and therefore pretty well everyone has a “right” to fall into virtually daily bad moods. But not everyone takes advantage of this right especially those who care about having good family relationships.

Loving Loved Ones

“My husband is not a morning person. In fact trying to have a conversation with him before he’s had something to eat is really a risky undertaking. Even though I know it’s not his fault I have to tell you that I really don’t like him in the morning. He is snappy and unpleasant. He can’t seem to use a pleasant tone of voice or work up a smile. He tells me it’s not personal — he’s been like that ever since he was a kid and his mother even laughs about it now. Well I guess she can laugh because she no longer has to deal with it. Meanwhile I start off every day unpleasantly. If he thinks this doesn’t affect our marriage he is very wrong.”

“Yes I screamed at the kids this week but you have no idea how much pressure I’m under. How can one person do everything herself? I teach in the morning I’m home with the babies in the afternoon everybody wants a decent dinner and I’m trying to clean for Pesach as the kids are walking around the house dropping cereal and cookie crumbs everywhere. You know what? They know I love them and if I’m a little extra irritable this week that’s just too bad.”

Really? Too bad for who? If we want to blame our irritability and bad behavior on our current stress we will have plenty of excuses available. As we discussed above life is stressful pretty well every day for different reasons. Sure Pesach is an obvious big source of stress. But if the family has to hurt for the weeks around this holiday every year how are they all going to feel about Pesach? And if someone is willing to be unpleasant and grumpy every time he or she is in a mood how many good moments will there actually be? And when a person just doesn’t care enough to be consistently pleasant what effect will that have on his or her most important relationships?

Consistent Caring

What a delight it is to live with someone who is almost always pleasant! How wonderful it is to wake up to smiles and cheery greetings and move through the day in good humor with the ones we love. Good relationships require consistent pleasant interactions. As soon as we relax into careless communication pain conflict and darkness spoil our living conditions. 

While a strong relationship might be able to withstand an unusual rare exception from the pattern of pleasant communications too many exceptions can make a strong relationship an impossibility. As the Ramban says it is important to “speak gently to all people at all times.”

“At all times” refers to the really hectic pressured stressful days before during and after Pesach and it refers to the days when everything is going wrong and everyone is making trouble. “At all times ” refers to times when we are tired hungry headachey busy hurt overwhelmed and upset. In fact “at all times ” means at all times — speak gently and be consistently pleasant.