ok, read this vort which was issued right here on YWN by R’ Oizer Alport from his weekly divrei torah.
Parshas Bereishis (Vol. 4, Issue 1)
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Throughout the generations, philosophers have debated the age-old question of which came first: the chicken or the egg? What does the Torah, which is the blueprint for the Creation and contains the answer to every question, have to say about this hotly-contested issue?
On the fifth day of Creation, Hashem said, “Let the waters abound with swarming living creatures, and fowl that fly about over the earth across the expanse of the Heavens.” On the phrase meaning “living,” Rashi comments, “that it will be alive” ? in the future tense. In the following verse (1:21), which relates the actual creation of the marine and bird life, the same expression which means “living” appears, but this time, Rashi comments, “that it is alive” ? in the present tense.
On the sixth day of Creation, Hashem declared, “Let the Earth bring forth living creatures, each according to its kind: animals, creeping things, and beasts of the land.” Once again, this verse contains the identical phrase which means “living,” and Rashi comments, “that it is alive” ? in the present tense. It is very uncharacteristic for Rashi to comment on the same phrase three times in a span of five verses. Further, it is not coincidental that Rashi switched the verb tenses between the verses. Why did he feel the need for these multiple comments, and what does this teach us?
Rav Yehoshua Leib Diskin explains that regarding Hashem’s command on the fifth day to create marine and bird life, His intention was for the waters to produce fish eggs that would yield fish, and bird eggs which would hatch and create birds. For this reason, Rashi stresses that they will be alive after they hatch. In the following verse, the Torah records that marine and bird life were actually created. In other words, the eggs hatched and produced the desired fish and bird species; for this reason, Rashi writes that they were alive, since this verse discusses their post-hatching state. On the sixth day, the Torah records the creation of land animals which aren’t hatched from eggs. They were initially created in their living states, and for this reason, Rashi refers to them as already being alive.
The mystics teach that there is nothing which is not alluded to in the Torah. Although the Maharil Diskin was coming to address a textual difficulty in Rashi’s commentary, his answer enables us to decisively resolve the philosophical dilemma by concluding that the egg was created before the chicken!