Bereshit

In the Beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth:

Genesis 1:1

Now listen to the correct and clear explanation of the verse in its simplicity. The Holy One, blessed be He, created all things from absolute non-existence. Now we have no expression in the sacred language for bringing forth something from nothing other than the word “bara” (created)….God brought forth from total and absolute nothing a very thin substance devoid of corporeality but having a power of potency, but to assume form and to proceed from potentiality into reality…God did not create anything, but formed and made things with it…

Ramban (13^th Century)

The paragraph tells us that heaven and earth with all their derivatives were created on the first day, none of them having been preceded by any physical matter at all. This fact is attested to by the word “bara” which describes the creation of “something out of nothing.”

Rabbeinu Bachya (14^th Century)

The process of creation commenced with the coming into existence of primordial matters called “heaven” and “earth.” …The former exist only in the feelings of the prophets, is an intangible. The latter comprises basic materials not yet fused in any shape or form. The two are so basically different from one another that they could not have been part of any single directive.

Akedat Yitzchak (15^th Century)

A few hundred years ago, a man wrote a book which contained no less than 913 different interpretations of “Bereshit,” the first word of the Torah. He stopped at 913 because that is the numerical value of the word “Bereshit” according to the system of “Gematria.”…Readers of the Torah were never bothered by the simpleton’s question, which is often shared by the so-called “scientific mind” Of all the commentaries, which is the “true” or “real” one? They knew, as keen students of hermeneutics and modern literary criticism know, that what differentiates great literature from its lesser counterpart is that the former can be interpreted on many levels, all equally “true” and “real.” And what is true of great literature is certainly true of the word of God, embodied in Torah.

Pinchas Peli (20^th Century)

More important, whether “creation out of nothing” is implied in verse 1 depends, not so much on how we begin the verse, but on how we understand “heaven and earth.” If we understand “heaven and earth” as everything there is or can be, then, to the modern mind, it would seem that neither time nor matter can pre-exist…If the concept of heaven and earth describes only an organized and ordered universe, then a primordial pre existence is not precluded…

Hershel Shanks (Contemporary)