This week's section is called Vaetchanan – And I pleaded with him. Moshe continues explaining the precepts of the Torah before his death. In the middle of the narrative, he introduces a personal matter: his request to enter the Land of Israel, which is denied.
Now, if Moses had not recounted his conversation with God on this matter, we would never have known. What lesson does this exchange between God and Moses hold for posterity?
To explain this, our sages focus on the word that begins and names this parashah: if what Moshe meant was that he prayed to God, he should have said Vaitpalel (in fact, that is how Onkelus, one of the principal translators of the Torah, translates it). The word Vaetchanan has its root in the word chinam, which means free. The idea is that Moshe, beyond all the merits he had accumulated throughout his life, asked God for a "free gift.".
The Talmud explains that whoever gives a gift does so with good intentions and a discerning eye, so that when doubt arises about the appropriateness of the gift, we adopt a generous attitude and consider the most generous possibility. Furthermore, every gift stems from a benefit the recipient bestows upon the giver; that is, if the recipient had not shown favor to the giver, the giver would not have given a gift.
Here, however, Moses asks for a "free gift," that is, without considering whether he deserved it or not. God still denies it, for which there are several explanations, but beyond that, now that we better understand what was happening between God and Moses, what remains for us?
The Ethics of Our Forefathers states: "If you studied much Torah, do not boast, for that is what you were created for." The idea behind this phrase is that God gives us qualities and abilities as a "free gift," so there is no reason to consider ourselves deserving of them.
Moreover, the very fact of having a Torah is a gift, as we say in the blessings for Torah study, that God is Noten haTorah - He gives us (giving and gifting have the same root in Hebrew) the Torah.
Of course, a free gift, because, by what merit could we say that limited human beings deserve to have a channel of connection with the Infinite? What action in our material world, to which we are confined, would connect Creation with the Creator?
That is why we say that the Torah is a free gift from "His full, open, holy, and ample hand." As such, we should learn to cherish it, just as the angels complained to God when He was about to give the Torah to the Jewish people, "Your hidden treasure, will you give it to humankind?" The Torah is God's hidden treasure, the earthly expression of His most essential being, and it belongs to us. Freely.