Creation obeyed the commandment of God's word to come into existence out of nothing. It did so immediately but did not do so fully immediately. It had to do so immediately if it was to do so at all, yet it was not able to do so with absolute completion without the assistance of God's grace of listening as well as His grace of speaking. Both the divine power of speaking and listening are inherent in the nature of the word of God.
God both communicates to Creation and receives and listens to the prayer of Creation in Genesis 1:1. This is told to us through the Hebrew word, Et, את. The sages inform us that wherever the word Et is found it comes to add to the meaning of the predicate of the sentence. Here we see that the heavens and the earth came to exist in order to express the will of God that they exist.
The word, Et, את, tells us that something more than heaven and earth's coming forth to do the will of God by existing is added here. Since they have obeyed and exist in obedience, what is added? Their prayer is added that they should not only exist but should exist according to the exact purpose of God. To this prayer, God listens through the listening power of His word, the power embedded in the word, Et, את.
Everything that follows comes through the power of God to speak to and hear Creation. Even before Creation knows how to form its prayers so as to express its needs, God hears and daily responds, for seven days, to those needs, in order that Creation can not just barely exist but can come to exist perfectly in accordance with His purpose.
Therefore we have, "In the beginning created God the Et, את, heavens and the Et, את, earth."
How do we know that the first statement of Genesis, the statement just quoted, which is the Bereshit bara... Et... statement, is a commandment stated in a declarative form rather than in the usual imperative form? We know this because when the first imperative comes, "Let there be light!" it is not an imperative that light should come to exist out of nothing but rather out of the dark waters of the heavens and earth, which have already obediently come to exist out of nothing.
We know that it is by His word that God created the world out of nothing. We therefore may understand that when we hear the first statement of the Torah, this statement of Genesis 1:1, we are hearing the statement that created and is sustaining the Creation of God. In our English language we call a statement like this a declaration of fact. Although heaven and earth did not exist, God said that they did. He stated that He created them as a declarative fact and they were immediately created through His word.
When the heavens and earth obeyed the declarative commandment of God's word, they did so with the memory, as it were, that they had begun to exist. This is what it means that they were created Bereshit..., In the Beginning... It is this that allowed them to be in process, even as they came into existence. But God also said that they were created with something additional, that is to say, they were created, Et, את. And that meant that God could hear the heavens and the earth speaking to Him about what they needed.
The very first thing He heard them say was that they were unable to shine. For clearly, in creating them God intended that they shine with light. Therefore God assisted the heavens and the earth by adding to His declarative commandment, Bereshit..., which brought them into existence, the imperative commandment, "Let there be light!" Then, in response to this imperative, the heavens and the earth were able to shine with light.
So we see that the word of God speaks and hears the need of that to which it speaks and then speaks again. And from this full process came one day of Creation, the first day of Creation's impregnation with joy on account of its relationship with the word of God.
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