After the death of the two sons of Aaron, Hashem tells Aaron the laws of doing the Avodah and the results of doing it while intoxicated. The Ben Ish Chai asks, why does the posuk say לאמר when Aaron wasn't commanded to repeat this law to anyone & also why does the next posuk say, להבדיל בין הקדש ובין החל to separate between the holy & mundane. What does that have to do with the posuk before about not drinking when you go into the Bais Hamikdash?
He explains the reason why the Kohanim can't go into the Bais Hamikdash while intoxicated. He quotes the sefer, Ohel Yaakov, that says that the Mikdash had the power to fill a person's heart with happiness; when one walked into the Bais Hamikdash he was filled with joy. Wine on the other hand was created to console a person & numb the pain he has. Therefore, a person who comes into the Bais Hamikdash has no need for wine for he's filled with a natural joy & feels no pain.
The Ben Ish Chai continues with another reason why the Kohanim can't drink wine. Since wine causes physical pleasure which wears off once the effect of the wine wears off, all the pleasure is gone & the person goes back to being upset at whatever was bothering him before. The Beis Hamikdash, however, filled a person who is doing the Avodah in the Beis Hamikdash with a spirit of purity & holiness; where there is holiness there is joy. Therefore, one can't combine the physical pleasure that's fleeting to the spiritual pleasure that's everlasting.
The Midrash relates a story of a person who was a drunk. When he didn't have money to purchase wine, he would sell some of his belongings to get wine. His sons saw what was going on & wanted to help him realize what he was doing & where he was going to end up if this continued. The next time he got drunk, they picked him up off the floor, brought him to the graveyard & left him there, drunk & passed out. They thought that when he wakes up & sees where he is, he will come to his senses & change his lifestyle.
As he was lying there in the graveyard, some wine merchants were walking by. When they heard sounds coming from the graveyard, they became frightened, dropped their barrels of wine & ran. When the drunk woke up, he couldn't believe his eyes, for right in front of him was a barrel of wine for which he didn’t even have to move. He could just turn the spigot & drink right out of the barrel still lying down. Here is a person who wanted to forget about life; the second he would start to sober up, he had to drink again, for the pleasure of the wine only lasts so long.
However, the Torah is telling us how great the pleasure of a Mitzva should be and why there is no reason for the kohanim to drink in the Beis Hamikdash. As is alluded to in the pesukim, when the Torah is trying to explain to Aaron why he can't drink wine in the Beis Hamikdash, it says לאמר which can be split up to read לא - מר not bitter, as if to say you are not a bitter person that needs to drink to forget your pain. You serve in the Beis Hamikdash, so you will be in a constant state of happiness. Therefore, there is no need to drink.
The Torah also gives us an additional reason why one can't drink while doing the avodah. Because the Kohen has to be able to differentiate between physical pleasures that have no substance & spiritual pleasures that are everlasting. This concept also explains the link between the two pesukim. The kohanim are the teachers of the generation; they have to be able to show us what true joy is supposed to be like. Therefore, the posuk states, להבדיל בין הקדש ובין החל to separate between the holy & mundane, to recognize which pleasures are only temporary & which pleasures will last throughout eternity so that we can try to emulate the kohanim & strive to reach the ultimate joy, the spiritual high of a mitzva!
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