בראשית א׳

(1) When God began to create heaven and earth— (2) the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water

(1) In a beginning created God etc - see the explanation of Rashi "in a beginning - due to Israel that are called beginning, and due to Torah that is called beginning" and the midrash, too, has "due to the mitzvah of first fruits, that are called beginning" (Rashi on Genesis 1:1). And one could say that all those opinions have the same intention, that one opinion says this, the other opinion says that, and they do not dispute.

(2) Since there is in the mishnah "on three things the world stands on Torah, and on Service and on Acts of Loving Kindness" (Avot 1:2) and there is in the mishnah "on three things the world stands, on Judgment, and on Truth and on Peace" (Avot 1:18). And we can also say that they have the same intention, that behold we are presented with three levels in the service of the High Creator, one - Torah learned for its own sake, and in truth our sages of blessed memory allowed us [study of Torah] even not for its own sake, as they said "a person should always engage etc" even if one does not reach to the levels of learning for its own sake nevertheless you should not refrain from it, since it is not quickly that one attains to learn for its own sake, but through a great exertion in one's service to the Blessed Name with all the good personal qualities.

(1) The first thing G’d embarked on when creating the material universe was to create heaven and ‎earth.”
It is an axiom, general principle, that G’d created the entire universe, and having done so, ‎never withdraws from the universe for even a single moment, [unlike sculptors or painters who, ‎once they have completed a sculpture or painting, move on to something else, having “finished” ‎with their previous “creation.” Ed.] This axiom is true both of what He created in the heavens and ‎what He created in the material, three-dimensional part of the universe. We pay tribute to this in ‎our daily prayers when we say ‎יוצר אור ובורא חושך‎, “He creates and fashions (present tense) light, ‎and He creates darkness.” When speaking of any accomplishments of G’d’s creatures however, we ‎speak of them in the past tense, i.e.‎יצר כסא‎, “he shaped a chair,” or ‎עשה מזרון‎, “he made a ‎mattress.” G’d’s creative activity is never completed, as the Torah testified in Genesis 2,3 ‎אשר ברא ‏אלוקים לעשות‎, “which the Lord has created in order to complete it.” This means that G’d is part of ‎every creature He ever created, and once man realizes that he is nothing without G’d Who has ‎created him and Who provides him with all the strength and creative stimuli that he possesses, he ‎will be able to relate to Hashem as an ongoing creative Force in His universe. This is ‎reflected every morning when we get up [after having used the washroom] and we refer to G’d ‎with the words ‎אשר יצר את האדם בחכמה‎, “Who has fashioned man with ‎חכמה‎,” the word ‎חכמה‎ ‎meaning the opposite of ‎אין‎, “nothing.” It is appropriate therefore that in that prayer we refer to ‎the creation of man in the past tense, as opposed to the line we quoted earlier, seeing that we ‎refer to something or somebody who already exists, i.e. ‎יש‎. This explains why the Ari z’al , ‎Rabbi Yitzchak Luria, said that when we refer to G’d as ‎ה' מלך‎, usually translated as “Hashem ‎‎is King,” the reference is to the ‎אין‎, “nothing,” i.e. G’d at any given moment ‎gives us life, -by not withdrawing it from us.- The implied meaning of the expression is that man is ‎‎“nothing” unless he continues to exist as part of G’d’s creative activity. The so-called ‎אין‎, “nothing,” ‎in terms of metaphysical beings, rules supreme in the regions beyond those that are part of the ‎physical universe, the one that we conveniently refer to as “nature.” This so-called ‎אין‎, is not really ‎a “nothing,” in terms of the universe, its “nothingness” is such only vis a vis the ‎physical part of the universe; in the celestial regions this “‎אין‎” rules supreme. [as opposed to the ‎חכמה‎ in our part of the universe. Ed. Although ‎יש‎ and ‎אין‎ are popularly perceived as absolute ‎opposites, not having anything in common, this perception is built on a fallacy; the linkage between ‎יש‎ and ‎אין‎ are the mitzvot, Torah commandments, performed by the Jewish people. The ‎commandments are performed in the section of the universe known as ‎יש‎, as a result of which ‎close contact is maintained between the aforementioned two domains of the universe. Ezekiel 1:14 refers to the “mitzvot” in their capacity as providing the link between the terrestrial ‎and the celestial part of the universe with the words ‎והחיות רצוא ושוב‎, “and the chayot ran ‎to and fro”. According to the Zohar II 288, the mitzvot and the Torah respectively, ‎are viewed as related to one another like the “hidden” is related to the “revealed,” both being part ‎of the same whole. Torah and mitzvot provide the link between these two domains, so that ‎each domain is not completely divorced from the other. This concept is contained in the letters of ‎the word ‎מצוה‎ when we divide it up into ‎מצ‎ and ‎וה‎. The letters ‎מצ‎ when we read the alphabet ‎backwards, starting with the letter ‎ת‎ are equivalent to the letters ‎יה‎, symbolising the totally ‎abstract Divinity, whereas the letters ‎וה‎ symbolize the hidden parts of the universe, ‎יש‎. The first ‎half of the word ‎מצוה‎ being read with the two letters used in reverse order of the aleph ‎‎bet, alludes to the “hidden” part of the universe, the domain exclusive to Divine, abstract ‎forces. Let us explain something about what precisely is “hidden” and what is “revealed,” when it ‎comes to the ‎מצוה‎, “Torah commandment.” When we perform a ‎מצוה‎, we cause G’d to become ‎pleased with having created man, the choicest of His creatures. When we comply with requests ‎made to us by a fellow human being, we can immediately gauge whether he is pleased by our ‎actions or not, either by his face indicating this, or by words of approval, something that is not the ‎case when we comply with G’d’s requests from us. Since He is invisible, and does not speak to us ‎as He did to Moses, “mouth to mouth”, we have no way of knowing if our efforts to please Him ‎have been successful. When we try to perform deeds that are for our (immediate) personal ‎benefit, we are able to determine if our efforts have succeeded. This then is the “hidden” element ‎present whenever we perform any of G’d’s commandments, ‎מצות‎. This is what the Torah had in ‎mind when it wrote (Deuteronomy 29,28) ‎הנסתרות לה' אלוקינו‎, “the hidden aspects of ‎‎mitzvah performance are reserved for the Lord our G’d;” on the other hand, ‎והנגלות לנו ‏ולבנינו עד עולם‎, “the benefits which the performance of the Torah confers upon us will be ‎revealed forever.” This is also the meaning of the words ‎בראשית ברא אלוקים‎, (addressed to us) “at ‎the beginning of G’d’s creative activity G’d created the ‎יש‎, a physical domain of the universe.” ‎Through His creating ‎יש‎, i.e. ‎ראשית‎, a beginning, the creation of heaven and earth came into being, ‎for prior to that there was only the ‎אין‎, the abstract universe. This is the meaning of Targum ‎‎Yerushalmi who renders this verse as‎ 'בראשית בחוכמא ברא ה‎', “at the beginning G’d created ‎by means of using intelligence found in the domain of the abstract regions.” ‎חכמה‎, as we pointed ‎out earlier, is a quality inherent in the terrestrial domain.‎