Three Pilgrim Festivals and the Festival Offering Brought Rightly

Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai 23:14

"Three times [literally: three feet]": and not those who walk on stilts. "Three feet": everything goes according to a person's own feet; one who comes from a near place is not like one who comes from a far place. "You shall keep a feast to Me": that he should offer the festival peace-offering. "You shall keep a feast to Me": with a festival-offering brought for its own sake a person fulfills his obligation, but a person does not fulfill his obligation with a festival-offering not brought for its own sake. If so, why does it say "you shall keep a feast to Me"? Whenever you keep the feast according to its commandment, I credit it to you as though you had brought it as a freewill gift; but when you do not keep the feast as is fitting, I credit it to you as though you had trespassed against the Temple Mount and the courts. Thus it says, "when you come to appear before Me, who has asked this of you, to trample My courts?" (Isaiah 1:12).

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