Why Does The Torah Begin With The Creation?

The Torah begins with the words "Breisheet bara Elokim et hashamayim ve‚et ha'aretz", "In the beginning God created heaven and earth." Rashi asks why the Torah begins with a description of the creation of the world. After all, isn't the Torah a book of mizvot, commandments and laws? Isn't the Torah careful not to waste words? Shouldn't the Torah skip the account of the creation as well as the accounts of our forefathers and fore mothers? Wouldn't it make sense for the Torah to begin after the Exodus of Egypt with the first mitzvah that the Jewish people were commanded as a nation, the mitzvah of Rosh Chodesh (the new moon)? Rashi's answer is that the description of the creation is necessary since it proves the Jewish people's claim to the Land of Israel. If the nations say to the Jewish people, "You are robbers, you have taken by force the land of the seven nations", then Israel can reply "All the earth belongs to God. He created it and gave it to whomever he saw fit. It was His will to give it to them and it was His will to take it from them and give it to us." In the rest of Sefer Breisheet, we again see God's promise of the Land of Israel to Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov and their descendants and the promise is again reaffirmed to Moshe at the beginning of Sefer Shmot. We can see from here that God did not "waste" the first book and a half of the Torah on the stories of the creation and the birth of the Jewish people. Rather, God wanted to emphasize the origins of the world in general and the Land of Israel in particular to show how special and unique the land is and why the Jewish people are destined to inherit it. We are privileged to have the State of Israel today and we must do what we can to fulfill God's promise of the Land of Israel to the Jewish people.