Yes, that was precisely the way I received the question, with no clue given to the identity of the author. I assume it is a man but maybe not. Maybe a woman wrote it, feeling that something is “wrong” with her for her compulsion to go above and beyond; perhaps the author was a woman who doesn’t enjoy spending time in the kitchen and just can’t understand why other women do.
Is it strange and just a “yetzer hara” for women to go to great lengths to cook and bake delicious and fancy Shabbos and Yom Tov meals? The answer will depend to a great extent on what “fancy” and “work oneself to the bone” mean, and understanding the different underlying motives.
If you’re a woman looking for an excuse to buy take-out and not go to the trouble of cooking, it can be tempting to justify your behavior by disparaging women who “work themselves to the bone for no good reason.” If you’re a man who is unwilling to help out in the house but feel you have to because your wife is so busy cooking and baking, you may want to justify your reluctance to contribute by disparaging the “excessive” time your wife spends in the kitchen, labeling it a yetzer hara of hers. And so forth. Addressing this question needs to be done with a great deal of honesty.
Disparaging the effort a wife and mother makes to produce delicious meals for a seudas mitzvah is a terrible thing to do. It’s sad when people focus on anything but the wonderful food and only notice the repercussions. Obviously if the side-effects of a medicine are terrible then we stop taking it, but how often are the consequences of a woman spending many hours in the kitchen so awful that the only logical conclusion is that she should look for a way out?
Another important point to bear in mind is that people often fail to take into account the long-term impact of a mother’s efforts to create beautiful seudos. Years might pass before we think back with nostalgia to the Shabbos and Yom Tov tables of our childhood years, and realize what they did for us. It’s not uncommon to hear about a troubled and distanced boy or girl who felt compelled to return to the right path, drawn by such special memories in which food, lovingly and devotedly prepared, features prominently.
So, is there a “special” yetzer hara for women to invest in Shabbos meals? I don’t believe it is special at all, in the sense that it is so common. Even if the woman concerned truly is spending far too much time and effort in her cooking and baking, that too is extremely common, just as it is common for all of us to sometimes get our priorities wrong and focus on less important things which end up being to the detriment of others.
Why might this happen? For many women, their self-worth is very much tied up with success in the traditional housewife role. Men, with their own sense of what boosts self-confidence, often fail to appreciate that home-baked challos might be to women what a new model of car is to men. Failing to appreciate the effort they make, and demanding that they instead suffice with store-bought challos is much more than a cost-benefit analysis of the energy expended on baking versus the exhaustion experienced afterward. And even if you may not think it’s worth it, you should accept that she does.
For other women, it might not be the food — it could be using real flatware rather than plastic, and so forth. The compulsion to do so is rooted, very often, in self-esteem issues. It’s not easy to change how people feel about themselves, or how they think and prioritize in general.
What if the woman in question, aside from being exhausted after lighting Shabbos candles, also yells at her kids and makes Erev Shabbos or Yom Tov a time of such stress and tension that it may just not be worth it? Something does have to be done in such situations, but one has to tread very carefully.
Addressing the problem head-on, the default approach of many husbands, is rarely successful. This isn’t a topic where, once explained why it makes no sense, the woman will clap her hand to her forehead and exclaim, “Oh my, how stupid I have been! From now on, I’ll stop being so silly.” This issue, like almost all shalom bayis issues, is one of emotions, which is why you’ll have to appeal to her feelings rather than her intellect if you want to solve the problem.
The first thing to do, therefore, is make sure you’re on her side. That means complimenting the delicious food and also complimenting the effort she made, even if you personally think it was unnecessary and excessive. And obviously saying something silly like, “Your challah is delicious, but I wish you wouldn’t go to so much trouble — I like store-bought just as much,” will not go over well. Such a comment is heard as an insult, even if a well-meaning husband didn’t intend it that way.
In general, complimenting the food is also a basic requirement of hakaras hatov. Regardless of how much you appreciate or resent your wife’s decision to spend hours in the kitchen, you are still benefiting from the end result, so be thankful and express it.
Once you have made it clear that you respect and appreciate her efforts, you can, very gently, introduce the concept of priorities without actually using that word. Tell your wife how much you wish the hours she spends preparing the seudos didn’t take such a toll on her; how you’re genuinely concerned about how exhausted she is.
This may be effective, especially if you are persuasive enough in conveying the benefits of your wife being calmer and more relaxed, and if you cheer her on as she is mevater on that extra salad or giving the kitchen floor “one last wash” when she’s about to collapse. (You might accomplish more if you lend a hand too, to show that you’re doing what you can. You may not care whether the floor is gleaming, but she does.) In any case, don’t be afraid to bring up the topic gently, and be clear about how you feel.
But, unless the situation really can’t go on, and you see it as her “issue,” you may have to just accept that this is one of your wife’s weaknesses, just as she accepts many of your weaknesses in different areas. Remember, her self-esteem may be bound up with the fact that she is personally sacrificing her time and energy toward this goal — after all, if it was easy, she wouldn’t feel the same satisfaction.
It’s only when the situation has deteriorated to the level of truly abusive that you will have to be proactive and brook no refusal. If, for instance, the mother insists that the children stay outside in the rain or sun while she cooks, as she needs absolute peace and quiet on Fridays, and nobody can walk across the kitchen floor throughout the entire day, (yes, this is a real example), then things have gone way too far and someone must step in.
If you’re a woman reading this, then perhaps I can tell you something your husband can’t: Take it easy! Yes, your efforts are for your husband and children and you truly care about them deeply. Precisely because you do, each time you wonder whether “I could just manage to...” step back and choose instead to invest in being a calm, relaxed, attentive wife and mother.
I don’t doubt the feeling of satisfaction you have when you see the Shabbos table set with all the delicacies you prepared. You can also learn how to feel a similar sense of satisfaction when you sit down at the table with energy and patience for your children, knowing that you’re only in that calm frame of mind because you were mevater on baking a second kugel or cake and took a nap on Friday afternoon instead.
If your husband or children hate to see you irritable and exhausted every Shabbos and Yom Tov, contemplate what they are learning from the way you approach things. Are they growing up hating such times, regardless of the delicious food? How may this impact their own choices as adults?
For both husband and wife, however, it’s extremely important to remember that even though it may seem obvious that ten salads + challah + three cakes + four kugels = a frazzled, irritable wife and a frustrated and angry husband, it’s not quite so simple.
I guess you can say that there is some special yetzer hara on Erev Shabbos and Yom Tov — not necessarily to work oneself to the bone, but to get stressed and angry. The Beis Aharon of Karlin is quoted as having said that women could be zocheh to ruach hakodesh due to the effort they invest lechavod Shabbos kodesh during their Shabbos preparations — and, knowing this, the Satan invests special effort in making them lose their temper, robbing them of that opportunity.
Erev Shabbos and Yom Tov are times when we are tested and just knowing that we’re being tested is sometimes enough to help us overcome the nisayon and approach things with calm and clear-headedness.
So, if you’re the husband and there’s something you can do to help on Friday, do it, even if you’d rather sit and learn while your wife takes a nap. And remember that it may be far easier for you to do so than it is for your wife to overcome any self-esteem issues and suddenly prefer to give up on what she feels is the Shabbos experience she wishes to give her family.
If you’re the wife and you’re driving yourself to exhaustion because of the impossible demands you’re placing upon yourself, try to remember how this can appear and how it might affect those around you (and yourself). It could be true that “if only everyone would pitch in more, appreciate more, or be more understanding” then everything would turn out fine. But it could still be advisable to put in the work to slowly redefine your self-worth, and accept the reality of how things are being experienced by others.
Your children will remember the good taste of your challah for years and decades, but the sweet taste in their mouths often depends far more on the sweet smile on their mommy’s face than on the food they were served.
