Genesis1chapter 1

This chapter opens the portion the annual cycle numbers first, so the Sabbath it is read on is the Sabbath the cycle starts over (src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts). The portion runs on past this chapter into Genesis 6. A congregation hears the creation account as the opening of a longer reading, and the card above carries the portion and the prophetic reading set beside it.

The Rashi quoted here is the public domain edition of M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann, Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary, 1929 to 1934. Every reference below is the one the corpus prints.

Rashi opens his commentary on the whole Torah at the first verse, and he opens it with a question about the starting point. He reports Rabbi Isaac asking why the law book of Israel began with creation instead of with the first commandment given to Israel in Egypt. His answer is that the account of creation settles God's right to the earth. When the nations call Israel robbers for taking the land of Canaan, Israel can answer that the Creator gave it to whom He pleased (Rashi on Genesis 1:1:1).

On the second day Rashi reads the making of the expanse as the fixing of something already there. The heavens were created on the first day and were still fluid, and on the second they grew solid at the command of God (Rashi on Genesis 1:6:1, citing Genesis Rabbah 4:2). He reads the fourth day the same way, holding that the lights were made on the first day and hung in the expanse on the fourth (Rashi on Genesis 1:14:1). The whole of creation was made on day one in his reading, and each thing was set in its place on the day it was commanded.

Where a Christian reader hears the plural of the twenty sixth verse as a word spoken within God, Rashi reads it as God consulting the household of heaven. The creature about to be made was in their likeness, so God took counsel with them first. Rashi draws the meekness of God from it, since the greater asked leave of the lesser (Rashi on Genesis 1:26:1, citing Midrash Tanchuma and Sanhedrin 38b). The two readings part at the doctrine of the Trinity, and this site sets them side by side at their full weight.

Ibn Ezra and Radak carry four comments on this chapter that the corpus holds by reference alone. The licence Sefaria reports for the English version keeps the text out. They are Ibn Ezra on Genesis 1:3:1, 1:17:1 and 1:18:1, and Radak on Genesis 1:23:1.

Rashi carries three sayings of the Aggadah on this chapter, and each stands here as what the rabbis taught. On the light of the first day he says that God "saw that the wicked were unworthy of using it". The light was therefore set aside for the righteous in the world to come (Rashi on Genesis 1:4:1, citing Chagigah 12a).

On the great sea creatures of the twenty first verse he reports that God made the Leviathan male and female. God then killed the female and salted her for the feast of the righteous in the time to come. A breeding pair would have been more than the world could bear (Rashi on Genesis 1:21:1, citing Bava Batra 74b).

On the two great lights he reports that the sun and the moon were made of one size. The moon was made the smaller after she said that "It is impossible for two kings to make use of one crown" (Rashi on Genesis 1:16:1, citing Chullin 60b).

The corpus records forty places where the Midrash and the Talmud cite this chapter, thirty under Midrash and ten under Talmud. It carries the locator for each one with no text, so the references stand here and the sayings are read at the source. Bereshit Rabbah reads the third verse at 3:1, the sixth at 4:1 and 4:3, the twenty second at 11:3, the twenty fourth at 17:4 and the twenty sixth at 22:2. Bamidbar Rabbah reads the second verse at 1:1, the third at 13:5, the fourth at 18:4 and 18:7, and the tenth at 13:14. Aggadat Bereshit reads the eleventh verse at 23:4, and Midrash Lekach Tov the seventh at Genesis 1:7:1.

The Talmud is cited at Arakhin 17a:6 on the first two verses, Avodah Zarah 29a:5 on the second and Berakhot 26a:17 on the fifth. It is cited again at Chullin 26b:18 on the eighteenth verse, Bava Batra 74b:5 on the twenty first, Avodah Zarah 43b:3 on the twenty seventh and Avodah Zarah 3a:6 on the thirty first. Avot DeRabbi Natan is cited at 35:9 and 26:4, and its second recension at 37:1.