נשא- Vessel of ברכה

Parashat Nasso is also known as Parashat HaKohanim. It is given this name because it has in it the blessings that the Kohanim give us in our tefilla every morning. In The passuk before the blessings hashem commands Moshe to tell Aharon and his sons to give this blessing to Bne Yisrael. “Tell Aharon and his sons saying, this is what you shall bless Bne Yisrael, say to them.” The kli yakar teaches that from these words, “Say to them,” we are taught that the hazan must read the words of the beracha word for word and the kohanim repeat after each word. He goes on further to explain that the reason we must do this is that the hazan is the mediator who draws from the source of berachot into his pipeline and empties the beracha onto the kohanim. When the hazan says the first word of the berachot it is as if he is turning the kohanim into a large vessel and emptying the beracha from his pipeline into the vessel of the kohanim. When the kohanim then repeat the hazan they are emptying the beracha from their filled vessel into the vessel of the congregation. The kli yakar says that if not for the hazan saying the beracha first the kohanim would be pouring from one empty vessel into another.

Now that we understand this we can also understand why when referring to beracha the passuk says “I will bless those who bless you” and when referring to kellala it says it the opposite way, “ and those who curse you, I will curse.” Hashem is saying, first I will bless those who bless you in order fill up their vessel with beracha and then they will empty their beracha onto you. However, Hashem does not curse a person until that person himself curses, hence “those who curse you, I will curse.”