There is a famous chazal (Sotah 2a, also in the last perek of Brachot) that Rashi (6:1) quotes that asks "why is the parsha of nazir close to the parsha of sotah? To teach you that one who sees a sotah in her degradation removes himself from wine, because it leads to bad things."
When one takes upon the vow to become a nazir the basic time period is one month. After the time is up a nazir must bring a korban to end the vow. In this week's parsha one can notice something very surprising. Before the person vows to be a nazir the torah refers to him/ her as a (6:2) "man or woman," but for the rest of the parsha, even after he/ she has brought his/ her korban and the torah (6:20) says "and after the Nazir drinks wine," meaning even after the process is over he/ she is still called a nazir.
The process is not about the short term change, it is about a lifelong goal. As the pasuk (6:8) says "All the days of his/ her nizro, he is kadosh to Hashem." Meaning as long as he remains in this uplifted level he remains kadosh.
There is a gemara (Nedarim 9b) that says "We learn, (Rabbi) Shimon Hatzadik said 'in my life I never ate from the asham of a nazir tamei except one time. A person came from the south, and I saw that he had pretty eyes and he had curly hair. I said to him "my son, why would you cut your hair which is so beautiful?" He answered me "I am a shepherd for my father in my town. I went to fill water from the spring and I saw my beauty. My yetzer was arrogant and wanted to remove me from the world. I responded to it 'Rasha, why do you get pleasure from this world which is not yours as a person who will one day be worms?' So I decided to cut it off for heaven." [After hearing this Shimon Hatzadik] immediately kissed him on the head and said "There should be more nazrim like you in Israel."'"
Notice in this story, the nazir's reason to become a nazir was not for the things that would change during the time while he was a nazir, rather it was about the changes after the period of a nazir was over. This may have been the difference between this nazir and the other nazirim in Israel.
Many times a person is affected by an event that happens to him. For the next few days or even weeks he is changed by what he saw, but as time goes on most people return to their old ways. This happens a lot around Rosh Hashana time, but most changes don't last past Cheshvan.
The Tosfot in Megillah says that Bamidbar is always read right before Shavuot, which the gemara calls a Rosh Hashana. This means that the parsha of Naso is always read right around this time, either the week before or the week after Shavuot. The placement of parshat Naso, and with it parshat Nazir, at this point during the year, is here to teach us that the main change is not the immediate one, but rather the permanent changes a person makes in his life.
May we all be zoche to make changes for the better, and actually stick to them.
Have a great Shabbat!
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