Neither the Bible nor the Talmud gives a systematic formulation of Judaism’s beliefs, although some positions considered unacceptable are indicated. Lists of Jewish creeds did not emerge until the middle ages, during which time attempts were made to formulate basic doctrines of Judaism, the first being by Saadya Gaon. The best known is Maimonides' 13 Principles of Faith, but note that Progressive Judaism does not accept them all in their traditional understanding (we have issues or qualifications at least with those that are shaded below). In summary they are:
1. God is the Creator of the universe.
2. God is One.
3. God has no body, form or likeness.
4. God is eternal. There was never a time when God did not exist,
and there will never be a time when God will cease to exist.
5. God alone is to be the object of all worship.
6. God speaks to humanity through the prophets.
7. Moses is the greatest of the prophets.
8. The Torah was given by God to Moses.
9. The Torah is eternal.
10. God knows all the thoughts and all the deeds of people.
11. God rewards good and punishes transgression.
12. The Messiah will be sent by God to redeem Israel.
13. The dead will be resurrected.
Maimonides’ axioms are both in the Ani Ma’amin (I believe with a perfect heart) and paraphrased in the poem/hymn Yigdal in Jewish prayer books, and are accepted by most Orthodox Jews today. They were probably composed in reaction to external disputations. However they were objected to by many, including Nachmanides, The Shulchan Aruch and Abarbanel (above based on summary by Rob Kendall). Remember - two Jews - three opinions! Never expect unanimity amongst Jews!
The Yigdal is also found in Mishkan T’filah (p628/9), though with several alterations from the traditional versions, (and the World Union Edition has made further changes from the original Mishkan T'filah, partly to improve the scanning of the hebrew for singing) because we don't believe the entire Torah was given to Moses, and we believe that, whilst the Torah contains eternal truths, it is not, in itself, eternal.
We reject (modify) several and especially the last three principles:
We do not accept reward and punishment in the simplistic way it is sometimes portrayed in Torah. We do not accept that God always makes it 'rain on the sinner and shine on the good'. We do not accept that, if someone is suffering (or dies), that is simply and always God's will. We do not accept that a child who dies of liver cancer has been 'punished by God', or even 'taken by God because they were so pure'. If we believed this, we'd have to accept that God caused the Holocaust and killed more than six million Jews including 1.5 million children, and millions of others. We do not. We believe this is a tragedy of human hatred. We would have to accept that the 'Boxing Day tsunami', or floods, or earthquakes, or air crashes, are God's punishments. We reject such concepts, believing in the loving, caring, forgiving God, a God who cries with us, a God with whom we should work in partnership to try to create a better, fairer, safer, healthier world.
We tend to believe in a Messianic time rather than an individual messiah, which is too specific, having to be descended from David, thus (presumably still) Jewish, and male, and for the arguably more important reason that we all have a responsibility to put God’s work into action (prayer into practice), and not just sit back and wait for a Messiah to arrive. Indeed, the Rabbis of old seemed to have certain reservations as well, perhaps because of the desperate wish for salvation, and the frequent ‘false messiah’ claims.
Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai taught: If you have a sapling in your hands and someone says ‘The Messiah has come’, finish planting your sapling first - then go out and welcome the Messiah! (Avot d’Rabi Natan 31). The sapling is of course a sign of a normal future and of continuity! So we have reworded the penultimate verse ‘God’s spirit shall be sent to all flesh, redeeming all humanity’.
The last of Maimonides principles is one that we don’t take literally. We believe that after death, ‘the soul returns to God who gave it’, but we absolutely reject physical resurrection. We do use the term ‘m’chaye metim’ (gives life to the dead), but we interpret it to mean that people ‘live on’ in many ways after they have died – through their children, through good (or bad) deeds, through memories and love etc – so we translate it interpretively as ‘Source of Eternal life’. In terms of Yigdal, the final words we use are that ‘God has implanted eternal life within us’.
