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Adapted from Bereshit Rabbah (Bereshit Rabbah 1-12)
Edition Midrash Rabbah -- TE Translation English translation by Maggid , since no free public English translation of this passage exists.
License Public Domain (Public Domain) Rabbi Hoshaya the Great opened: "Then I was beside Him as a nursling (amon), and I was His delight day by day" (Proverbs 8:30). Another interpretation: amon means craftsman (uman). The Torah says: I was the working tool of the Holy One, blessed be He. In the way of the world, a king of flesh and blood who builds a palace does not build it from his own knowledge but from the knowledge of a craftsman, and the craftsman does not build it from his own knowledge, but he has scrolls and tablets in order to know how to make the rooms and how to make the wicket gates. So too the Holy One, blessed be He, was looking into the Torah and creating the world. And the Torah says, "In the beginning (be-reshit) God created" (Genesis 1:1). And reshit means nothing other than the Torah, as you say, "The LORD acquired me as the beginning (reshit) of His way" (Proverbs 8:22).
רַבִּי הוֹשַׁעְיָה רַבָּה פָּתַח: וָאֶהְיֶה אֶצְלוֹ אָמוֹן וָאֶהְיֶה שַׁעֲשׁוּעִים יוֹם יוֹם. דָּבָר אַחֵר אָמוֹן, אֻמָּן. הַתּוֹרָה אוֹמֶרֶת אֲנִי הָיִיתִי כְּלִי אֻמְנוּתוֹ שֶׁל הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא. בְּנֹהַג שֶׁבָּעוֹלָם מֶלֶךְ בָּשָׂר וָדָם בּוֹנֶה פָּלָטִין, אֵינוֹ בּוֹנֶה אוֹתָהּ מִדַּעַת עַצְמוֹ אֶלָּא מִדַּעַת אֻמָּן, וְהָאֻמָּן אֵינוֹ בּוֹנֶה אוֹתָהּ מִדַּעַת עַצְמוֹ אֶלָּא דִּפְתְּרָאוֹת וּפִנְקְסָאוֹת יֵשׁ לוֹ, לָדַעַת הֵיאַךְ הוּא עוֹשֶׂה חֲדָרִים, הֵיאַךְ הוּא עוֹשֶׂה פִּשְׁפְּשִׁין. כָּךְ הָיָה הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא מַבִּיט בַּתּוֹרָה וּבוֹרֵא אֶת הָעוֹלָם, וְהַתּוֹרָה אָמְרָה בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים. וְאֵין רֵאשִׁית אֶלָּא תּוֹרָה, הֵיאַךְ מָה דְּאַתְּ אָמַר ה' קָנָנִי רֵאשִׁית דַּרְכּוֹ.
Commentary This is the most famous of all Jewish creation myths. It appears at the very beginning of Genesis and is known, at least in rough outline, even by those who have little knowledge of the Bible. The only biblical account that is equally famous is that of the disobedience of Adam and Eve. This Creation narrative emphasizes God's use of the power of the word in order to create the world. On each day of Creation, additional elements are brought into being when God commands that they appear. On the surface this seems to be creation ex nihilo, out of nothing, but a close reading of the biblical text shows a certain amount of ambiguity about whether God drew on pre-existing elements or created everything Himself. Every subsequent Jewish creation myth refers directly or indirectly to this one. It either verifies the principles established here, or contradicts them, implying, for example, that some elements, such as light, already existed when God said, "Let there be light" (Gen. 1:3). See "Light from the Temple," p. 411, where this theory is elaborated. Following the seven days of Creation is a second creation myth. Genesis 2:4-25, which offers a different perspective on the events of Creation, emphasizing the creation of man and woman. Scholars have proposed that these were two separate creation myths that were combined by the priestly editors of Genesis, despite some apparent contradictions. See "The Creation of Man," p. 133, and "The Creation of Woman," p. 142. This seminal creation myth also had a great influence on the way God was conceived. It can be argued that the personification of God begins in Genesis 1:2: God said, " Let there be light " Since humans also speak, using language just as God is said to do, it was natural to assume that God had other human characteristics. As a result of this myth, it has been assumed that all God's creations came into existence through the words uttered by God, as made explicit in this passage from Psalms: By the word of Yahweh the heavens were made, by the breath of His mouth, all their hosts (Ps. 33:6). There are many parallels between the Genesis Creation myth and the creation myths of other peoples of the ancient Near East. One of the closest is the Mesopotamian creation myth found in Enuma Elish, where the divine assembly of Mesopotamia is created through the merging of Apsu, divine patron of fresh water, and Tiamat, divine patron of salt water. An Egyptian creation myth is preserved in the Hymn to Ra, the creator and ruler identified with the sun, where Ra describes creation: "There were no heavens and no earth. There was no dry land and there were no reptiles in the land. Then I spoke and living creatures appeared." A seven-day incubation ritual is described in the Ugaritic stories of Aqhat. A hymn to the creator of the heavens and the
