(1) Three mitzvot were commanded to Israel at the hour of their entry into the land: to appoint for themselves a king, as it is said, "You shall surely appoint a king over you (Deuteronomy 17:15);" to wipe out the descendants of Amalek, as it is said, "Erase the memory of Amalek (Deuteronomy 25:19):" and to build the chosen house [Temple], as it is said, "Seek His Presence and go there (Deuteronomy 12:5)."

(1) בראשית ברא IN THE BEGINNING GOD CREATED — This verse calls aloud for explanation in the manner that our Rabbis explained it: God created the world for the sake of the Torah which is called (Proverbs 8:22) “The beginning (ראשית) of His (God’s) way”, and for the sake of Israel who are called (Jeremiah 2:3) “The beginning (ראשית) of His (God’s) increase’’. If, however, you wish to explain it in its plain sense, explain it thus: At the beginning of the Creation of heaven and earth when the earth was without form and void and there was darkness, God said, “Let there be light”. The text does not intend to point out the order of the acts of Creation — to state that these (heaven and earth) were created first; for if it intended to point this out, it should have written 'בראשונה ברא את השמים וגו “At first God created etc.” And for this reason: Because, wherever the word ראשית occurs in Scripture, it is in the construct state. E. g., (Jeremiah 26:1) “In the beginning of (בראשית) the reign of Jehoiakim”; (Genesis 10:10) “The beginning of (ראשית) his kingdom”; (Deuteronomy 18:4) “The first fruit of (ראשית) thy corn.” Similarly here you must translate בראשית ברא אלהים as though it read בראשית ברוא, at the beginning of God’s creating. A similar grammatical construction (of a noun in construct followed by a verb) is: (Hosea 1:2) תחלת דבר ה' בהושע, which is as much as to say, “At the beginning of God’s speaking through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea.” Should you, however, insist that it does actually intend to point out that these (heaven and earth) were created first, and that the meaning is, “At the beginning of everything He created these, admitting therefore that the word בראשית is in the construct state and explaining the omission of a word signifying “everything” by saying that you have texts which are elliptical, omitting a word, as for example (Job 3:10) “Because it shut not up the doors of my mother’s womb” where it does not explicitly explain who it was that closed the womb; and (Isaiah 8:4) “He shall take away the spoil of Samaria” without explaining who shall take it away; and (Amos 6:12) “Doth he plough with oxen," and it does not explicitly state, “Doth a man plough with oxen”; (Isaiah 46:10) “Declaring from the beginning the end,” and it does not explicitly state, “Declaring from the beginning of a thing the end of a thing’ — if it is so (that you assert that this verse intends to point out that heaven and earth were created first), you should be astonished at yourself, because as a matter of fact the waters were created before heaven and earth, for, lo, it is written, (v. 2) “The Spirit of God was hovering on the face of the waters,” and Scripture had not yet disclosed when the creation of the waters took place — consequently you must learn from this that the creation of the waters preceded that of the earth. And a further proof that the heavens and earth were not the first thing created is that the heavens were created from fire (אש) and water (מים), from which it follows that fire and water were in existence before the heavens. Therefore you must needs admit that the text teaches nothing about the earlier or later sequence of the acts of Creation.

(5) So what is meant by this thing that David said: Good and upright is the Lord; therefore God instructs sinners in the way; God leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble God’s way (Psalm 25:8-9)? That God sends them Prophets who inform them of God’s ways and bring them back in teshuvah, and furthermore: that God has given them the power to learn and understand. Every person possesses this characteristic: so long as one is drawn down the paths of wisdom and justice, one will desire them and pursue them. And this is consistent with our Rabbis of Blessed Memory said: “One who comes to purify receives assistance,” meaning one will find oneself assisted in the matter. But is it not written in the Torah, And God said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be strangers in a land which is not theirs, and they will make them serve, and they will afflict them for four hundred years (Gen 15:13) – didn’t God decree for the Egyptians to do evil? And it is written, this people will rise, and play the harlot after the gods of the strangers of the land (Deut. 31:16) – God decreed for Israel to commit idolatry, so why should they be punished? Because God did not decree for this specific known person to be the idolater. Rather, each and every one of those idolaters, had he not wanted to commit [idolatry] – he would not have committed [idolatry]; but God merely described the way of the world. God might as well have said, “This nation will contain righteous people and wicked people.” A wicked person can not say that God decreed for him to be wicked just because God told Moses that there would be some wicked people in Israel. This is just like when it says, there will never cease to be poor in the land (Deut. 15:11). So it is with the Egyptians – each and every one of those Egyptians who abused Israel, had he wished not to abuse them, he possessed free will. God did not decree for any specific person [to enslave Israel], but merely informed [Abram] that in the end his ancestors would be enslaved in a land that was not theirs. And we have already said that a person does not have the power to know how the Holy Blessed One knows things that will be in the future.