Commentary for Genesis 1:1

בראשית IN THE BEGINNING — Rabbi Isaac said: The Torah which is the Law book of Israel should have commenced with the verse (Exodus 12:2) “This month shall be unto you the first of the months” which is the first commandment given to Israel. What is the reason, then, that it commences with the account of the Creation? Because of the thought expressed in the text (Psalms 111:6) “He declared to His people the strength of His works (i.e. He gave an account of the work of Creation), in order that He might give them the heritage of the nations.” For should the peoples of the world say to Israel, “You are robbers, because you took by force the lands of the seven nations of Canaan”, Israel may reply to them, “All the earth belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He; He created it and gave it to whom He pleased. When He willed He gave it to them, and when He willed He took it from them and gave it to us” (Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 187).

בראשית ברא אלוקים, let the “intellectuals” realize that all the words of our sages and their interpretations are true and accurate. This is what the Talmud (Shabbat 63) had in mind when it quoted Rav Kahane saying that he had studied the Talmud until the age of 18 and had not yet appreciated that although the laws of the Torah are derived from the text, none of the interpretations are such that they can uproot the plain meaning of the text. They are based on anomalies in the text, not on the text itself wherever the law derived from the Torah appears to conflict with the plain meaning of the text. One example is Genesis 2,4 where the word בהבראם, a most unusual construction, used by the sages to declare that the world was created “for the sake of, or with the help of אברהם,” (Bereshit Rabbah 12,9) seeing that the letters in that word are the same as the ones in the name אברהם, [though in a different sequence. Ed.]
I shall list the explanations of earlier commentators of old, in order to demonstrate why I did not follow in their footsteps. Some scholars understand the first verse to mean that “at the beginning G’d created heaven and earth.” This is an erroneous explanation, seeing that water preceded the creation of heaven and earth as we know from verse 2 where “the spirit of G’d” is described as already “hovering over the surface of the water.” Moreover, the Torah did not write בראשונה, which would have been appropriate if it had wanted to tell us that heaven and earth preceded all other phenomena in the universe. The word בראשית is in a construct mode, as in Genesis 10,10 ותהי ראשית ממלכתו בבל “the mainstay of his kingdom was Babylon.” A construct mode like this cannot describe the commencement of something but refers to something already in existence. As to the scholars who understand the word as equivalent to the word תחלה in Hoseah 1,2 i.e. so that it would mean “at the beginning G’d created the heaven,” i.e. before He created heaven and earth there was chaos, darkness on the face of the water, etc., so that it emerges that water had been created first, this too is nonsense. How could the Torah refer to a state of the earth prior to creation of the heaven?
The plain meaning of the text is, as occurs many times, that something may be mentioned first in one instance although elsewhere this same phenomenon is mentioned as having occurred at a later stage. In Genesis 9,18 we are told about the three sons of Noach who left the ark after the deluge being Shem, Cham and Yephet, and the Torah adds that Cham was the father of Canaan. Although the information about Canaan is quite out of place at this juncture, the fact that later on the Torah tells us that Noach cursed Canaan, makes it necessary to mention him here, as otherwise we would not have known who this Canaan was whom Noachh cursed in verse 25 of the same chapter. We have a similar situation in Genesis 35,22 where, although Reuven’s conduct with Yaakov’s concubine Bilhah is mentioned, Yaakov’s reaction is not mentioned until shortly before his death when he explains why Reuven had not been viewed by him as suitable to occupy the position normally accorded to a firstborn (Genesis 49,3-4). In 35,22 the Torah already tells us that Yaakov had heard about what Reuven had done. Had the Torah not done so, the reader would have been taken aback at Yaakov’s remonstrating with Reuven at this late stage.
There are many such examples. Our entire paragraph here was written by Moses in order for us to understand what is written in the Ten Commandments concerning the reason why the Sabbath is holy, i.e. that it is a symbol reminding us of the fact that G’d created the universe in 6 days and rested on the seventh day. (Exodus 20,10) If anyone were to think that the universe as such had already existed then in the format that we see it now, the Torah corrects such thinking by continuing with

IN THE BEGINNING G-D CREATED. Rabbi Yitzchak said: The Torah, which is the book of laws, should have begun with the verse, This month shall be unto you the first of the months,¹Exodus 12:2. which is the first commandment given to Israel.²It is true the book of Genesis contains three commandments (1:28; 17:10; 32:33), but after the Revelation on Sinai these laws became incumbent upon Israel. Hence the verse this month, etc., is “the first commandment given to Israel” as a people. What then is the reason that it begins with the creation? Should the nations of the world say to Israel, “You are robbers because you took unto yourselves the lands of the seven nations of Canaan,” they [Israel] may reply to them, “The whole world belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He. He gave it to whom He pleased, and according to His Will, He took it [the land] from them and gave it to us.”
This is a homiletic exposition³Found in Tanchuma (Buber), Bereshith 11. See also Rashi (Berliner) p. 424. as quoted by Rabbi Shlomo [Rashi] in his commentaries.
One may object that it was indeed very necessary to begin the Torah with the chapter of In the beginning G-d created for this is the root of faith, and he who does not believe in this and thinks the world was eternal denies the essential principle of the [Judaic] religion and has no Torah at all.⁴A person who thinks the world is eternal cannot believe in miracles since, if G-d did not create the world, He cannot possibly change it. Ramban explains in many places (e.g., see further, 17:1; 46:15) that all Divine promises concerning the blessings or imprecations which will follow upon our observance or disregard of the Torah are miraculous in nature of “invisible miracles.” A person who believes that the world is eternal thus has “no Torah at all.” See further my English work, Ramban: His Life and Teachings, Chapter 13.
The answer is that the process of creation is a deep mystery not to be understood from the verses, and it cannot truly be known except through the tradition going back to Moses our teacher who received it from the mouth of the Almighty, and those who know it are obligated to conceal it.⁵Chagigah 11 b: “The process of Creation may not be expounded before two.” It is for this reason that Rabbi Yitzchak said that it was not necessary for the Torah to begin with the chapter of In the beginning G-d created and the narration of what was created on the first day, what was done on the second and other days, as well as a prolonged account of the creation of Adam and Eve, their sin and punishment, and the story of the Garden of Eden and the expulsion of Adam from it, because all this cannot be understood completely from the verses. It is all the more unnecessary for the story of the generations of the flood and of the dispersion to be written in the Torah for there is no great need of these narratives, and, for people who believe in the Torah, it would suffice without these verses. They would believe in the general statement mentioned to them in the Ten Commandments: For in six days the Eternal made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day,⁶Exodus 20:11. and the knowledge of the process of creation would remain with individuals as a tradition from Moses who received the law on Sinai together with the Oral Torah.
Rabbi Yitzchak then gave a reason for it. The Torah began with the chapter of In the beginning G-d created and recounted the whole subject of creation until the making of man, how He [G-d] granted him dominion over the works of His hands, and that He put all things under his feet;⁷See Psalms 8:7. and how the Garden of Eden, which is the choicest of places created in this world, was made the place of his abode until his sin caused his expulsion therefrom; and how the people of the generation of the flood were completely expelled from the world on account of their sin, and the only righteous one among them — he [Noah] and his children — were saved; and how the sin of their descendants caused them to be scattered to various places and dispersed to different countries, and how subsequently they seized unto themselves places after their families, in their nations,⁸Genesis 10:5. as chance permitted. If so, it is proper that when a people continues to sin it should lose its place and another people should come to inherit its land, for such has been the rule of G-d in the world⁹The Hebrew word ba’aretz (world) may also refer here to “the land,” especially the Land of Israel. See Ramban further, 26:5. from the beginning. This is true all the more regarding that which is related in Scripture, namely that Canaan was cursed and sold as a servant forever.¹⁰Genesis 9:25. It would therefore not be proper that he inherit the choicest of places of the civilized world. Rather, the servants of G-d — the seed of His beloved one, Abraham¹¹See Isaiah 41:8. — should inherit it, even as it is written, And He gave them the lands of the nations, and they took the labor of the peoples in possession; that they might keep His statutes, and observe His laws.¹²Psalms 105:44-45. That is to say, He expelled those who rebelled against Him, and settled therein those who served Him so that they know by serving Him they will inherit it, whereas if they sin against Him, the land will vomit them out, just as it vomited out the nation before them.¹³See Leviticus 18:28.
Elucidating the explanation I have written are the words of the Sages in Bereshith Rabbah, wherein they say as follows:¹⁴1:3. “Rabbi Yehoshua, of the city of Siknin, in the name of Rabbi Levi opened [his discourse on this chapter of Creation with the verse]: He hath declared to His people the power of His works.¹⁵Psalms 111:6. Why did the Holy One, blessed be He, reveal to Israel what was created on the first day and what was created on the second day? It is on account of the seven nations who inhabited the land of Canaan, so that they should not taunt Israel and say to them: ‘Are you not a nation of robbers?’ Israel could then reply to them: ‘And you, is it not booty in your hands? Have not the Caphtorim that came forth from Caphtor destroyed them and dwelt in their stead?¹⁶Deuteronomy 2:23. The world and the fullness thereof belong to the Holy One, blessed be He. When He willed it, He gave it to you, and when He willed it, He took it from you and gave it to us.’ It is this which Scripture says, To give them the heritage of the nations.¹⁵Psalms 111:6. He hath declared to His people the power of His works in order to give them the heritage of the nations. Hence He told them the account of creation.”
There is yet another source for the subject I have mentioned: the mysteries in the process of creation. It is what our Rabbis of blessed memory have said:¹⁷This Midrash is quoted by Rambam in his Preface to Moreh Nebuchim. See Batei Midrashoth, ed. Wertheimer, I, p. 251. “He hath declared to His people the power of His works.¹⁵Psalms 111:6. To declare the power of the process of creation to a mortal being is impossible. Therefore, Scripture closed the matter: In the beginning G-d created.” Thus is elucidated what we have said on this subject.¹⁸That the details in the process of creation and the settlement of the earth were written for the purpose of justifying Israel’s possession of the land while the essential process of creation itself remains a mystery.