Parshat Bo: The limitations of memory

(א) בראשית. אָמַר רַבִּי יִצְחָק לֹֹֹֹֹא הָיָה צָרִיךְ לְהַתְחִיל אֶת הַתּוֹרָה אֶלָּא מֵהַחֹדֶשׁ הַזֶּה לָכֶם, שֶׁהִיא מִצְוָה רִאשׁוֹנָה שֶׁנִּצְטַוּוּ בָּהּ יִשׂרָאֵל, וּמַה טַּעַם פָּתַח בִּבְרֵאשִׁית? מִשׁוּם כֹּחַ מַעֲשָׂיו הִגִּיד לְעַמּוֹ לָתֵת לָהֶם נַחֲלַת גּוֹיִם (תהילים קי"א), שֶׁאִם יֹאמְרוּ אֻמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם לְיִשְׁרָאֵל לִסְטִים אַתֶּם, שֶׁכְּבַשְׁתֶּם אַרְצוֹת שִׁבְעָה גוֹיִם, הֵם אוֹמְרִים לָהֶם כָּל הָאָרֶץ שֶׁל הַקָּבָּ"ה הִיא, הוּא בְרָאָהּ וּנְתָנָהּ לַאֲשֶׁר יָשַׁר בְּעֵינָיו, בִּרְצוֹנוֹ נְתָנָהּ לָהֶם, וּבִרְצוֹנוֹ נְטָלָהּ מֵהֶם וּנְתָנָהּ לָנוּ:

Rashi on Genesis 1:1

(1) 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 (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)

pharaoh, (from Egyptian per ʿaa, “great house”), originally, the royal palace in ancient Egypt. The word came to be used metonymically for the Egyptian king under the New Kingdom (starting in the 18th dynasty, 1539–1292 BCE), and by the 22nd dynasty (c. 945–c. 730 BCE) it had been adopted as an epithet of respect.
The Egyptians believed their pharaoh to be the mediator between the gods and the world of men...

"The halakhah is not a random collection of laws, but a method, an approach which creates a noetic unity."
"An individual does not become holy through mystical adhesion to the absolute nor through mystic union with the infinite nor through a boundless, all-embracing ecstaasy, but rather through his whole biological life, through his animal actions and through actualizing the halakha in the empirical world...holiness consists of a life ordered and fixed in accordance with halakha and finds its fulfillment in the observance of laws regulating human biological existence...."
Rav Joseph Dov Soloveitchik (20th c. United States)

Law purifies and sanctifies even our lower impulses and desires by applying them with wise limitations to the purposes designed by the Creator...righteousness is the Law's typical end and aim.
Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch (19th c. Germany)