Why the Ten Commandments Begin with Anokhi and the Letter Alef

"I am the LORD your God" (Exodus 20:2). Rabbi Aha said: For twenty-six generations the alef kept crying out in protest before the Holy One, blessed be He, saying: I am the first of all the letters, yet You did not create the world with me but with a bet, as it says, "In the beginning (Bereshit) God created" (Genesis 1:1). The Holy One, blessed be He, said: By your life, I shall repay you. The Torah was created two thousand years before the world was created, and when I come to give the Torah to Israel, with you I will open — "I (Anokhi) am the LORD your God." Rabbi Nehemiah said: What is "Anokhi"? It is an Egyptian expression. To what may the matter be compared? To a king whose son was taken captive and spent many days with the captors, and learned the speech of those captors. When the king had taken vengeance upon his enemies and brought his son back, he came to converse with him in his own language, but the son did not know it. What did the king do? He began to speak with him in the language of the captors. So too did the Holy One, blessed be He, do with Israel. During all those years that Israel were in Egypt, they had learned the speech of the Egyptians. When the Holy One, blessed be He, redeemed them and came to give them the Torah, they did not know how to understand it. The Holy One, blessed be He, said: Behold, I will converse with them in the Egyptian tongue. A person in Egypt who wishes to say "I" to his fellow says "anokh." So the Holy One, blessed be He, opened in their language and said "Anokhi."