The issue is that the Rambam says that the land of Israel was divided among the tribes by Joshua so that when they would go and conquer it would not have the status of the conquest of an individual. [I think that is in Hilchot Trumah.]

You can see why this is important. Jerusalem was never conquered by any of the tribes until the time of King David. So we have now that the land of Reuben and Gad had the status of Israel along with all the rest of Israel. So far everything seems good. But what about Syria? Syria was conquered by the general of Kind David. But it did not gain the status of Israel because Jerusalem had not been conquered at that point. [or at least not all of the seven Canaanite nations had not be conquered.]

But if Joshua had already divided up the land so that no conquest of any area would be conquest of an individual then it should not matter if Jerusalem was in the hands of Israel at that point!!!


  The idea that there are times that the holiness of the land of Israel is not revealed. That is--even though the holiness is always there still it can't be revealed until Israel comes and conquers. That would apparently have to refer to כיבוש בבל when the exiles returned from Babylon. That is because the Talmud says openly that the first conquest did not sanctify the land except at that time alone.


This might help on on the point of joy also. There are lots of kinds of happiness that are evil. E.g happiness at the sorrow of another person. Good traits can becomes bad if misused. Certainly we don't consider compassion on the same level as cruelty. Yet compassion in the wrong time and place is cruel. That does not mean that compassion is bad. Not at all. Rather it can be misused. We find holy things can become profane. E.g. sacrifices that have not been eaten in the proper time period  etc.