[Avodah] simcha vs bassar

[Saul.Z.Newman at kp.org]

seen online---

Here is a common misunderstanding ... Many frum Jews insist on eating meat 
at every holiday meal. They do this because the Talmud tells us there can 
be no happiness without meat and wine, and "happiness" is required on the 
holiday*. But, those fools who unreflectivly stuff themselves with meat 
have forgotten that "happiness" is a subjective quality. It can't be 
prescribed. I can't demand that you  enjoy a particular food or drink will 
make you happy. Everyone is different. Some people don't like meat. Others 
like fish and meat equally well. The idea that someone who enjoys fish 
can't use it to fulfill a requirement to be happy is absurd. If it makes 
him happy, it makes him happy. And the people who will eat a fish meal 
with great gusto but insist on having a small, undesired piece of meat at 
the end "just to fulfil the requirement" are missing the point. The 
obligation isn't to eat meat. The obligation is to be happy. And if eating 
fish makes you happy, eat fish and make no apologies*

(PS:The Shaagas Aryeh and Rav Moshe Feinstein agree. Both write 
that whenever you make yourself happy on Yom Tov, you have fulfilled the 
mitzvah.   I throw this in both because its true, and because I expect 
many of you won't accept the basic truth of my argument unless someone 
with a long beard said it previously.)

* Other authorities, notably the Rambam, rule that eating meat on Yom Tov 
is a biblical requirement. There are two ways to understand this: (1) They 
don't connect the meat eating to happiness, but to the no longer extant 
practice of eating sacrificial meat on Yom Tov; or (2) They were unable to 
imagine a man who didn't enjoy meat. I am not sure how a biblical law can 
be based on a failure of imagination, but there it is 


--- are there communities  outside of MO   who are not makpid to eat 
fleishig  on shavuot?

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