The Pesach seder has helped to sustain our faith and reinforce our identity throughout the ages. Much of that has to do with the deliberate way that Chazal, our sages, set the seder up, with a variety of things for us to say and do that make the experience more powerful and inspiring. This article will look at three of those features and use psychology research to understand why they work and how we can use those same techniques to increase our happiness and wellbeing on all other nights, too.
Storytelling
The three seder features we will look at all serve the same basic purpose: to enhance the sipur, the telling of the story of yetziat Mitzrayim, the exodus. We can understand what that storytelling entails by contrasting it with the everyday mitzvah to simply remember the exodus (zechira). All a person has to do to fulfill that mitzvah of zechira is think for a moment about yetziat Mitzrayim. However, the storytelling (sipur) we are commanded to do at the seder is an entirely different matter. Chazal built a few things into the seder to make it a story fitting of the night of Pesach. At the seder, we relive the exodus. We imagine ourselves leaving Egypt and tell our families about it. We make it vivid with props like matzah and marror, and we express our thanks to Hashem for all that he's done for us.
If you've been to a Seder before, you know that each one of those features helps make the seder uplifting. With the help of research from the field of positive psychology, we can understand why they work. Positive psychology is a field that focuses on how ordinary people can become happier and more fulfilled. Researchers in the field have identified a number of things that happier people do that contribute to their being happy. They found that if other people do more of those things, they will also experience a boost in positive emotions and wellbeing. As it turns out, our three uplifting features of the seder each utilize one of those happiness-boosting techniques.
