Halakhah sa Exodo 34:23: Shulchan Shel Arba & Mishneh Torah, Positive Mitzvot

Therefore, they used to come to Him three times a year for the pilgrimage festivals: Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot – on the holiday of Passover because it is the month of Aviv, the time for the barley harvest; on the holiday of Shavuot because it is the time for the wheat harvest, and on the holiday of Sukkot because it is the time of gathering when all the fruits were gathered into the home. And this is why it is written, “[three time a year all your males shall see] the face of the lord YHWH, the God of Israel,”⁷⁵Ex 34:23. and it is written, “none shall see My face,”⁷⁶Ex 23:15. that is to say, without a sacrifice, because they would need to bring in any case the olah and shlemim offerings, and through this the world would be blessed with its meals and sustenance from the flow of blessing from the source to the well, and from the well to the garden, and from the garden to the four rivers of the garden of Eden of the lower world, whose inhabitants are blessed from there throughout the four corners of the world. So you find yourself learning that when a person stands over his table and eats with this thought in mind, see! This eating is indeed physical and a natural activity, but see! It also revolves into a higher, intellectual form of worship, and this is the reason why it is written, ‘In all your ways know Him,’⁷⁷Prov 3:6. as I discussed above. And if so, you see how one’s eating is thought to be a perfect act of worship like one of the forms of divine service [i.e., the sacrifices], and the like quintessential commandment of all the commandments. And this is the point of having the right intention at a meal at the table – that the body be nourished by it and take its bodily portion from the bodily eating, and the soul by this act of thought is filled, fed, and satisfied as if from the choicest parts of “real eating” of the ways of Ha-Shem and His pleasantness, and regarding this it is said, ‘Your table is laid out with rich food.’⁷⁸Job 36:16.

To appear (in the Sanctuary) on the feast, as it is said, “Three times in the year shall all thy males appear (before the Lord thy God in the place which He shall choose)” (Deut. 16:16).