Bereshith: the word

בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית: The first word of the Torah contains a great deal with in it.  

It contains the second word: בָּרָ֣א.  The first three letters are repeated. בָּרָ֣א, Standing alone is  translated as created.  This pattern of repeating the letters of the first word is also in Psalms. Psalms begins: אַ֥שְֽׁרֵי־הָאִ֗ישׁ. The first word contains the second ( except for the definite article: 'the').  Notice that the letters of  ashrei are all contained in  bereshith.

Thus the word ish אִ֗ישׁ , often translated as "man" is unpacked.  An ish is sometimes a man and sometimes an angel.  When it is a man, it implies a hero ( Latin vir), as opposed to an ordinary man (homo).  The aleph and reish that turn ish into ashrei are components of ohr  אֽוֹר: light, the first definitive creation.  The creator call the light yom י֔וֹם, a word that borrows two letters from the ineffible name of Gd.  Perhaps yom is a daily, repeated  ( the mem in the end makes it pluraloid) manifestation of Gd. 

The first letter, ב contains within it the raish ר, the yod י (on the tip)  and the taw ת  (turn it on its side)  which spell  בְּרֵית brith: covenant.   Since the  ת taw and the ב beith  have similar components, it is as if the covenental nature of creation is repeated at the end of the word.   The creation is part of a covenant.  The world is created on the condition that it will be cared for. The creator, who constructed a habitable  world  and our very existence, deserves obediences. 

When you remove brith בְּרֵית from the word, you are left with אשִׁ֖ aish, fire, the symbol of human mastery  over nature (cf Propmetheus -> pro  me  [vs] theos). Fire, the enemy of life giving water (see Hoshana Rabba liturgy [לְמַֽעַן אֵיתָֽן ﬣַנִּזְרָֽק בְּלַֽהַב אֵֽשׁ׃]), is the only one of the the four element ( earth, air, fire and water) that is not explicitly mentioned  in the second verse describing the nascent world. The earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water—

The word רֵאשִׁ֖ rosh, meaning head,  is prominent in the word.  The head of  an animal is the first thing to enter, but in humans the head stands over the rest of the body.  I prefer to think that the creation was done with the supervisory head rather than the exploratory head, but I think that the etymology is from the latter. 

Hebrew vowels are optional in writing, so the letters used for them can be left out. If one does that with Bereshith, the word left behind רשִׁ֖ת can be pronoununced reshet which means a network: a lattice that can catch fish or birds;  or the more modern matrix of electronic nodes.  The creation involved things and ideas that are inextricably  conneccted to one another.  It is an enclosure with holes that are  too small for escape. 

The letter for  the word  י שִׁ֖ yesh, existence, are in bereshith - how coud they not be part of the ex nihilo process that dominataed the medieval mind and re-emerged in the thinking of Stephen Hawking. 

 The individual letters carry the meaning.  The בְּ B is the most (ex)plosive of letters, the greatest change in history is announced. Existence  is declared. 

The רֵ Rrrr is the earthquake (רֵשִׁ֖ ) that follows the explosion

The א, silent aleph, is the relative quiet that follows the momentous events

The שִׁ֖ Shhh is the train of events  that have been initiated. As a prefix, שִׁ֖ means "that [which]" It is the letter that is the essence of fire, agent of change.

The י, y,the smallest letter, is the benefit derived.  It is the reminder of Gd's name, it reaasures and warns of a future (gramatically it is a letter used to connote the future tense)

ת, t, is an occlusive sound, an ending. ת is anbivalent. It is the last letter of the alphabet and it also can designate the future (tense). 

So much in the first word, the first letter, followed by so many words and so many letters...