Rashiרש״י

English

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)

Rosenbaum–Silbermann 1929–34 · silbermann

Hebrew / Aramaic

Rashi on Gen 1:1, s.v. בראשית · pd

Notes

The most famous opening sentence in the history of Jewish Bible commentary, and it is an objection to the book it is opening. R. Isaac said: the Torah, which is Israel's law book, ought to have begun at 'this month shall be to you the first of the months' (Exod 12:2), the first commandment given to Israel. Why then does it begin with the creation? Because of Ps 111:6, 'he declared to his people the power of his works, in order to give them the inheritance of the nations' — so that when the peoples of the world say to Israel, you are robbers, for you seized the lands of the seven nations, Israel may answer: the whole earth belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He; he made it and gave it to whom he pleased, and when he willed he took it from them and gave it to us. The chapter, on this account, is not there for its own sake at all. It is title to land, and Rashi puts it at the head of a commentary that will be read for nine hundred years.

Threads

• → cites · Bereshit Rabbah
  Rashi's answer is Bereshit Rabbah 1:2 almost entire — Ps 111:6, 'he declared to his people the power of his works, in order to give them the inheritance of the nations'; the nations calling Israel robbers; and Israel's reply that the whole earth belongs to the Holy One, who gave it and took it and gave it again. What Rashi adds, and what makes it the opening of a commentary rather than a piece of polemic, is R. Isaac's premise: the Torah should have begun at Exod 12:2.
• ← parallel · Hugh of St Victor
  The star thread of this crux, and both benches say it about the book they are expounding. R. Isaac: the Torah is Israel's law book and ought to have begun with the first commandment given to Israel, at Exod 12:2. Hugh: the matter of all divine Scripture is the works of restoration, and the works of foundation are the matter of secular writings. Each has ruled that the first chapter of Genesis is not what its book is for, in Troyes and in Paris within fifty years, and each then supplies a reason external to the chapter — a claim on the land, a descent toward the Incarnation.
• ← contests · Ambrose
  The two benches' reasons for the chapter, and they do not meet at any point. Ambrose: Moses spoke not in the persuasion of human wisdom nor in philosophy's counterfeit disputations but as a witness of the divine work, and therefore dared to say 'in the beginning God made heaven and earth'. R. Isaac: the book should have begun at the first commandment, and begins here so that Israel may answer the charge of robbery. One answers from the writer's authority, the other from the reader's need; neither would recognise the other's question as the question.
• → contests · the Mishnah
  The first sentence of the most-read Jewish commentary on the Torah asks why the book begins with the work of creation, in a tradition whose Mishnah says the work of creation may not be expounded before two. Rashi does not cite the rule and does not need to break it: his answer removes the chapter from the domain the Mishnah is fencing by making it a matter of public law rather than of hidden things — the peoples of the world say, and Israel answers.
• ← parallel · Philo of Alexandria
  The same question, put from the same premise, answered in two directions that have nothing to do with each other. Both begin from the fact that the Torah is a book of law and does not open like one. Rashi, quoting R. Yitzhak, says it should have begun at Exodus 12:2 and answers with Ps 111:6: God told his people the power of his works, so that when the nations call Israel robbers Israel can answer that the whole earth is his and he gave it to whom he pleased. Philo says the opening is what makes the law binding: it shows that world and law agree, and that the law-keeper is a citizen of the cosmos. One answer secures a title to a particular land; the other secures the authority of the code over anyone anywhere. Eleven hundred years apart, and there is no channel between them.