In the Bible, in no verse do we find an explicit commandment that obliges us to «believe» in something, for example, in the existence of God. There isn’t one, and there is no punishment for not believing. Some would say that belief in God is implicit in the commandments that say, «I am the Lord your God» or «You shall love God,» but that idea is not presented explicitly.

Neither in the Bible nor in the Talmud do we find a systematized list of beliefs or dogmas. The structure of the Bible is based on accepting the fact that God exists and that He has a relationship with humanity, especially with Israel. We could say that these are the two basic dogmas implicit in the biblical text. For their part, the sages of the Talmud did not deal much with the subject, except in a few cases, such as in the tractate Sanhedrin, which states: «These are the men who will be excluded from the world to come: He who says there is no resurrection of the dead, he who says the Torah was not received from heaven, and the heretic (apikoires).» The Midrash also speaks of believing in the coming of the Messiah and of God rewarding or punishing.

In the Middle Ages, dogmas were a topic that many of our sages began to address, perhaps due to the influence of Islam and the Karaites. One was Saadia Gaon, who in his book «Beliefs and Opinions,» listed five dogmas, which, two hundred years later, Maimonides included in his list of thirteen dogmas. This list was initially rejected by some sages, such as Nachmanides, but over time it was accepted by all, to the point that today it is included in prayer, along with the Ygdal, a frequently sung hymn. In modern times, some theologians, such as Mendelsohn and Leo Baeck, rejected the idea that Judaism has dogmas and that listing them is contrary to what the Bible and the sages of the Talmud teach.

Maimonides’ thirteen principles of faith can be grouped into four groups: the first is the belief that God exists, that He is one, that He has no physical body, that He is eternal, and that He is the only one we should worship. The second is belief in the prophets, that Moses is the greatest of them, that the Torah was given to Moses on Mount Sinai, and that the Torah is immutable. The third is that God knows human actions and rewards or punishes them accordingly. And the fourth is the belief in the redemption of the Messiah and the resurrection of the dead.

We might question, as many have, why these thirteen dogmas and not more, or fewer, or none at all? Salomon Schechter tells us: the important thing is not whether the list is complete or not; the important thing is the fact that our sages took care to prepare it to make us think and so that man is not only capable of doing what is right but also of thinking what is right for each of us.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: Salomon Schechter: Studies in Judaism, Chapter VI, First Series.