This mitsvah appears as the third of the sacrificial commandments connected to the holidays. The previous two mitsvot in Rambam were the obligations to offer a hagigah and an olat re-`iyah, a sacrifice in celebration of the holiday as well as an offering that would wholly be given to God, to mark one's appearance at the Temple. Whie only men offered those two, all adult Jews were also obligatedt offer another shelamim, another sacrifice which was shared among the mizbeah, the altar, the kohanim, and the person who brought the sacrifice. At its basic level, then, the mitsvah of simhah, of joy, on the holidays, applies only to the Temple. Indeed, the gemara (Pesahim 109a) records a statement that in the time of the Temple, there is no simhah other than that of eating this sacrifice. Before we analyze how the mitsvah is fulfilled today, then, we should try to understand the components of the mitsvah in its original form.

One option would be to declare that we simply cannot understand the mitsvah as originally observed, since it was something specifically connected to besar shelamim, to the meat of a sacrifice, that we cannot understand. Indeed, that seems to be the simplest reading of Pesahim, since it goes on to say that nowadays all the members of the family should find joy in the ways most appropriate to them, men (for example) by drinking wine. In the Sefer haMitsvot, in fact, Rambam only mentions drinking wine as the contemporary mode for a man seeking simhat Yom Tov. In that view, we have no way of fully understanding the original simhat Yom Tov, since it was integrally connected to the experience of the Temple and sacrifices generally, realms in which none of us have direct experience.

In the Mishneh Torah (Hilkhot Yom Tov 6;18), Rambam surprisingly (and without an apparent source) adds meat to the list of ways in which men can create the desired simhah even nowadays, despite quoting the gemara that only mentions wine. He thus assumes that eating meat itself leads to some kind of joy (as many men can attest); the Talmud only wanted to point out that without a Temple we cannot capture the full experience of eating that sacrifice. The eating of the sacrifice, then, created joy in two ways, one, the fundamental joy fostered by eating meat, and also the element of its being in the Temple, as part of one's service of God.

Women’s relationship to this mitsvah seems to be necessarily different from what it was in the times of the Temple, even according to Rambam. While men might be able to experience some of that joy by eating meat, Rambam (and the gemara) assume that meat-eating, perhaps pleasurable, is not the way in which women will achieve the kind of joy we seek to engender. Instead of meat-eating, Rambam recommends new clothing. (As I write this, I wonder whether people will see it as sexist; I am not sure, however, why it is any more "normal" to get joy from eating meat or drinking wine than from having a new garment). This is not, I should add, a ruling of Rambam's, but an expression of his understanding of what would bring the joy of simhat Yom Tov to women. Women who feel that getting new clothing just because of the coming of a holiday would not bring them that joy should feel free to forego that expenditure. Women who feel that the experience of eating meat and drinking wine does contribute to that joy should do that as well.

The interesting part of this difference between men and women, though, is how it affects our understanding of the impact of the destruction of the Temple on our Yom Tov experience. To the extent that women derive joy from experiences other than food, their simhat Yom Tov currently differs more greatly from that of the time of the Temple than does men's. In Temple times, eating sacrifices was the way we all experienced joy; now, each sex has to go its own way in finding joyful holiday experiences. For men (for Rambam in the Mishneh Torah), regular meat provides some pale shadow of that joy; for women, that is less obviously true. The joyful experiences they use to achieve simhat Yom Tov will necessarily have to look other than at the models set up in the time of the Temple.

A final question worth considering has to do with why God ordained holidays at all. Sefer haHinukh and Rambam seem to see it as a concession to human needs. Sefer haHinukh says that humans need to be happy sometimes, so God found a way to make it for a useful purpose. Rambam, in Moreh Nevukhim III: 43, adds that holidays are useful in terms of fostering good relations among the members of a nation (celebrating together gives a sense of unity and common purpose), and also help to inculcate certain ideas and ideals in the citizens. Without our need for celebration, or the national unity such a celebration creates (like a ticker-tape parade down the Canyon of Heroes), God might not have ordained that we observe the holidays.

Possibly, God was doing more than channeling the human urge for group celebrations in positive ways. It could be that the human urge for happiness, and for group experiences, were instilled by the Creator since those urges, properly used, can bring us closer to God. We see in Tanakh that prophecy comes to people who are happy, not those who are sad.; so, too, the Divine Spirit might have the best chance of striking us when we are happy. The simhah of Yom Tov, then, might be a built-in opportunity and urge to bring us to a moment of communion with the Holy One. Similarly, God is more likely to be palpably present in a group—be-rov am hadrat melekh— than to a particular individual, and the joint simhah of Yom Tov might also be seeking to promote that, all with an eye towards deepening our relationship with God. Shabbat Shalom.