Why do we continue to keep two days of Yom Tov outside of Israel? The reason for two days was revelant during the temple era as we needed two witnesses to see the new moon. But today, with no Temple for witnesses to come too and a fixed calendar which tells us when the new moon is for hundreds of years, keeping the second day seems like an unnecessary hardship.
Answer
Aside from the reasons that Shalom mentioned, the Midrash (Shir Hashirim Rabbah 1:6) states that it's part of the penalty of exile: since we didn't properly keep the one day of Yom Tov in the Land of Israel, we now have to keep two in exile.
(In a more positive vein, though, Chassidic writings see this as part of the process of teshuvah - like a rope that was severed and now is re-knotted, where the part with the knot is much thicker than the rest of the rope. In the same way, teshuvah involves an even greater increase in Jewish practice than before - including, in this case, twice as much Yom Tov.)
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