Parshas Naso is always read either on the Shabbos immediately preceding or on the Shabbos immediately following Shavuos. It would therefore be reasonable to look for a connection between the messages of Shavuos and the contents of parshas Naso. I believe that it is possible to find such connections throughout the entire parsha, with all its varied components. However, I would like to focus on only one section, that of the Birchas Kohanim - the blessing of the priests to the nation - and, by extension, the section of the nazir which immediately precedes it. This section is, perhaps, particularly significant, since we receive the blessings of the kohanim during the Yom Tov of Shavuos. Although, in Eretz Yisroel - and even outside of it, among some Sephardim - the kohanim bestow this blessing every day, outside Eretz Yisroel, among Ashkenazic Jews, they only do so during the Yomim Tovim of Pesach, Shavuos Sukkos and Shemini Atzeres, as well as on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Since we all do receive this blessing on Shavuos, it would be particularly meaningful to find some common denominator between the message of this blessing and the message of Shavuos.

Towards the latter part of parshas Naso, God commands the kohanim to bless the children of Israel saying, "May God bless you and guard you ; May God illuminate His countenance toward you and endow you with grace ; may God lift His countenance to you and establish peace for you" (Bamidbar 6 : 24-26) The kohanim actually serve as the vehicle for God's blessing upon the people, as He says, "They shall place My name upon the children of Israel and I shall bless them" (6:27). Rabbi Kalonymous Kalman Shapira, the Piacezner Rebbe, may God avenge his blood from the Nazis who killed him in Treblinka, wrote, in his work Eish Kodesh, that the Birchas Kohanim is actually a way of bringing the experience of Mt. Sinai into our lives. Before revealing His Torah to the nation, God told Moshe to deliver a message to them: "And you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" (Shemos 18: 6). The emphasis here, says the Piacezner, is on "you shall be." Each individual must make himself into a priest and a holy person. We have not fulfilled our obligation to keep the mitzvos of the Torah, he says, unless our observance effects the reality of our lives, in all its physicality, and transforms us. The blessings bestowed by the kohanim are directed to these physical aspects of our lives. That is why Rashi, citing the Sifre, explains that "May God bless you" refers to blessing one's possessions. Torah must relate to the everyday aspects of our lives, and God's blessings to us relate to these aspects as well.

Based on the words of the Piacezner, we can understand why the Torah places the section of Birchas Kohanim immediately after the section on the laws of the nazir, and specifically after the purification process for a nazir who became ritually unclean, thereby violating the nazirite prohibitions. A nazir is one who removes himself from certain physical aspects of life, abstaining from the pleasure of drinking wine and consuming wine products. He also must let his hair go uncut, and avoid contact with a corpse. There is an opinion in the Talmud that only a nazir who has defiled himself is considered a sinner. Thus, if, in the end, the nazir defiles himself by coming into contact with a corpse, he has show, retroactively, that he was not on the level to refrain from normal human pleasures. If he does not defile himself, however, what he has done is considered a good thing. However, there is another opinion, that even a nazir who has successfully seen his period of nezirus to its conclusion has not done something that is intrinsically good, but only adopted a temporary corrective measure to offset an inclination toward forbidden pleasures. Following this approach, Rabbi Moshe Isserles, known as the Rama, explains the passage, "he shall be holy" (Bamidbar 6:5) as referring to the status of the nazir after he has finished his term of nezirus and regained his equilibrium with respect to the physical pleasures of the world. During his state of abstinence, writes the Rama, the nazir is not yet holy. Being a holy people, as the Piacezner says, entails bringing Torah into the reality of our physical existence, as God enjoined us before giving us the Torah at Mt. Sinai.