Hashem should bless you and guard you: Hashem should light up His face to you and grant you favor: Hashem should uplift His face to you and give you peace...
The Ohr Hachaim offers three explanations as to the connection between the two berachos in the first possuk.
- The beracha states that Hashem should guard them according to their beracha. If Hashem has blessed them with great riches, the entire beracha should be guarded, and they should not lose any of it.
- Another explanation is that the beracha should be so great that it should need guarding. When we see a house or car with multiple security features, that teaches us that the houses, its contents, or the car, are extremely valuable. Nobody spends large sums of money on a house that stores items of little value. When the Cohanim bless Klal Yisroel that they should receive great favors from Hashem, it is described as enough to require divine guardianship.
- The third explanation offered by the Ohr Hachaim is that riches are not necessarily beneficial to a person. We sometimes hear about someone who became very rich, which later caused his downfall. He may buy himself a dangerous toy that kills him; it may put him on the radar of evil ones who wish to cause him harm, and the government may decide to come after him, ruining his life. The Cohanim bless Klal Yisroel that they should be blessed, and nothing untoward should happen to them for their riches.
The Ohr Hachaim then explains the next beracha. He writes that the light of Hashem is immense and never dimmed. However, sometimes a curtain is set up between Hashem and His creations, and people only experience Hashem’s light according to the curtain that has been erected. This separation depends on a person’s level and actions; a complete Tzadik has the minimum of separations between himself and Hashem. The beracha is that even if Klal Yisroel sins and is worthy of being punished with an extra layer of separation between them and Hashem, Hashem should act with kindness and light up their lives.
Hashem is the source of all favor; when a person finds favor in someone else’s eyes and the person likes him unconditionally, that is a product of the gift of favor that Hashem has granted him. When the Cohanim bless Klal Yisroel with this gift of favor, they are channeling this idea and blessing them with the heavenly favor that causes others to like them.
The third beracha is a similar point. When Klal Yisroel sins, they lower another curtain between them and Hashem, and the divine influence is weaker and less visible. The cohanim bless Klal Yisroel that Hashem should lift up that curtain and not allow it to separate between Hashem and His nation.
