Last week’s parsha began with Moshe beseeching God to let him cross into Israel, “V’etchanan el Hashem,” “I pleaded with God at that time, saying…Let me, I pray, cross over and see the good land on the other side of the Jordan…”

Rash”i comments that the word va’etchanan (to plead or beseech) means to request something as a free gift (from the word “chinam” which means “free,”  a possible root of v’etchanan).  “Even though the righteous have the merit to ask for things based on their good deeds, nevertheless when they ask God for something, they ask it as a free gift.”

Rash”i’s explanation is perplexing though in light of the various statements in Jewish thought which seem to deplore accepting gifts, such as the following:

“He who pursues ill-gotten gain makes trouble for his household; he who spurns gifts will live long. (Proverbs, 15:27)”

“From the time when those who accept gifts proliferated, the days decreased and the years shortened…(Talmud Sota, 47b)”

“Truly righteous people and those of spiritual stature would not receive gifts from others. Instead, they would trust in God, blessed be His name, and not in generous people, as Proverbs states: “One who hates gifts will live. (Maimonides Laws of Ownerless Property and Gifts, 12:17)”

This week’s Torah portion, Ekev, seems to begin with the opposite idea, instead of receiving God’s grace as a free gift the Torah says, “And if you obey these rules and guard and observe them, your God will faithfully keep the covenant and the kindness which God swore to your ancestors.”

Rash”i comments that God will do kindness for you and keep the covenant with you if you observe even the seemingly small commandments that people sometimes trample on.

In both our Torah portion and in last week’s portion, the gift we desire is not one we do not deserve, but one that we do deserve. Rash”i makes this clear in his comment on last week’s parsha, in which he writes that Moses does not wish to enter the land as a gift because he does not have sufficient merit to deserve it, but in spite of the fact that he does have sufficient merit as a righteous person. Nevertheless, he asks God to give it to him as a gift.

In our Torah portion, it states that God will give us blessing as a kindness, and that this will happen if we keep the entire Torah and do God’s will, in which case, we don’t need a gift from God. Nevertheless, though we have the merit, the verse says that God will give us the blessing as a “chesed,” a kindness or gift.

If accepting gifts is so bad, and Moses and the Jewish people have the merit not to need the land and its blessings as a gift, why do we ask for it as precisely that—a gift?

I think the answer is that there is a difference between a gift and a handout. A handout is when one receives something that one has not worked for, and thus it may come with feelings of dependence and shame. (For this reason, the best way to give charity is by not giving it at all, but by teaching someone to fish, or if money must be given, it should be given anonymously.) This is the “gift” which the Talmud disapproves of. But a gift which is given by someone who loves us, does not make us feel dependence and shame; rather it expresses love. In a sense it is “deserved.”

When we give someone we love a gift, we give it because we want to—we give it because the relationship is already there. When we are close, such a gift then is an expression of love, not dependance. So too, we aim to have a relationship with God which is not one of dependence upon God, but a relationship of love in which the gifts God gives us are the natural emanation of our relationship and thus are well deserved.