The fundamental commandment here is to rest from creative activity on the first and seventh days of Pesah, Shavuot, Rosh haShanah, the first day of Sukkot, and Shemini Atseret. In many ways, these hagim (holidays) are distinct, with their own character and meaning. These differences are most easily seen through the vehicle of the mitsvat hayom, the special mitsvah applicable to each holiday. Based on that, we might have also assumed that our obligation to observe each holiday was also distinct and distinctive to each holiday.

To some extent, the Torah’s separately commanding us to rest on each of these days (at least from most types of creative activity) ratifies the impression of distinctness. Indeed, if we follow the evidence of these mitsvot the Torah might seem to suggest that they are even more distinct than we ordinarily assume- the seventh day of Pesah, for example, is separately obligated in rest from the first day, although we generally think of it as a continuation of the same holiday (as shown, for example, by our not making a shehehiyanu when the holiday arrives). The Torah could theoretically have only articulated the notion of a mikra kodesh, a holy day of assembly characterized by the lack of creative activity, and then listed the qualifying dates. By separately obligating cessation of creativity on each day, the Torah seems to be giving each day an importance of its own.

On the other hand, each of these obligations exactly mirrors the other—we are enjoined to observe a day of rest on the first day of Pesah in exactly the same way as on the last day of Sukkot. The reason for the holidays may be distinct, but the way in which we observe them is exactly the same. This sameness can also be seen in Rambam (and Shulkhan Arukh) containing sections entitled Hilkhot Yom Tov, which give the laws applicable to holidays generically.

By considering the two terms in the Torah that signal these obligations, we might gain some insight into what it is the Torah wanted from these days. The first, used to define most of these six days, is mikra kodesh, which most literally means a day called holy, but probably also indicates some kind of public assembly. These days are also referred to as Shabbat or Shabbaton, which is taken to mean some kind of rest from creative activity. The Torah seems to be saying, in other words, that when important occasions—of whatever type—come around, we should observe them by putting aside our other labors, freeing ourselves to focus on the day at hand.

Several halakhot that apply to Yom Tov strengthen the evidence that we are trying to free ourselves to better focus on the meaning of the day. I first heard this concept from mori ve-rabi R. Lichtenstein, who devoted a shiur to several differences between Shabbat and Yom Tov. One of those was the issue of hiluk melakhot, a concept that applies to the prohibitions of work on Shabbat but not Yom Tov.

That concept means that each different type of creative activity renders a person who unknowingly transgresses it liable for a separate korban hatat. Someone who both plowed and harvested on Shabbat while in a state of having forgotten that that day was Shabbat, for example, would nonetheless be liable for separate sacrfices. In the case of Yom Tov, there is no differentiation among the various melakhot; transgressing one of them 5 times is the same as transgressing five different ones. R. Lichtenstein suggested then that since the point of Yom Tov was creating a certain freedom from ordinary life, any interruption of that atmosphere was as bad as any other. On Shabbat, in contrast, the point was not only to create a certain atmosphere, but that each different type of activity was inherently prohibited on that day, hence the different result in terms of the need to atone for such sins.

The okhel nefesh exception, as well as one of the details of its rules, supports the view of Yom Tov as a time to create a certain atmosphere. First, the Torah refers to the activity we are to desist from as melekhet avodah, which the gemara explains as meaning to exclude melekhet okhel nefesh, creative activity we would undertake to provide food for ourselves. That entire difference from Shabbat—a difference that extends to carrying items from place to place without an eruv and burning fires, at least when those acts have some Yom Tov use—shows that the Torah cares about actions of creativity more for what they will prevent us from doing than about the actions themselves.

In addition, in a halakhah that Rambam (in the first chapter of Hilkhot Yom Tov) asserts is de-rabanan but others think is de-oraita, we are not allowed on Yom Tov to perform creative labors that could have been done the previous day with no loss. While there is some debate as to the reason for this prohibition, Rambam phrases it nicely as a problem of allowing yourself to be preoccupied with labor on this day rather than the enjoyment of the day itself. The permitted activities, he notes, were allowed in order to increase the joy of the day, not in order to leave room for a day of labor disguised as a day of Holy Assembly.

As we have noted before, the Torah stating these obligations as positive commandments (in addition to prohibitions) seems to indicate that there is a positive value to the experience rather than just avoiding some negative consequence. Here, it would seem that result is to force us to free enough space, time, and psychic energy to experience God on six central occasions of the year, each for its own reason and in its own way. Shabbat Shalom and a Hag Sameah.