Authoritative foundations of a dogma. In the Pentateuch, no attempt is made to distinguish between rules and principles among the commandments and to formulate a basic dogma. Even what at first promises to be a declaration of principles ("And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you but to ..." (Deut. 10:12)) continues not with essential principles but with the entire Torah program: "... fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him and to serve the Lord ... with all your heart ... to keep the commandments and the statutes." The "ten words on the tablets of stone" (Deut. 4:13) present basic practices rather than principles of Judaism (see Ten Commandments).
However, eventually systemization and the determination of basic dogmas were found to be essential. Thus, the talmudic sages were not content to establish the exact number of commandments in the Pentateuch but started to divide them into those between man and God and those between man and man (Yoma 85b), distinguished between rules and principles and sought to discover the supreme moral principle (Sif. on Lev. 19:18, Shab. 83).
Similarly in the area of creed, the rabbis spoke of a person who denies the existence of God as a kofer be-ikkar, "he who denies the root," i.e., belief in God is the basis of the entire Torah (Ar. 15b). Responding to the proliferation of heretical views, the rabbis ruled: "These are the ones who are excluded from the world to come: he who denies Resurrection, the Divine origin of the Torah, and the Epikoros" (i.e., those who deny Providence and Reward and Punishment; Sanh. 10:1). Since a share in the world to come is promised to "All Israel ..." such an exclusion would appear to define the creedal requirements of an "Israelite." In terms of positive affirmation, the rabbis embodied basic principles of Judaism in the text of the liturgy, in the daily Shema (the statement "Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One" can be seen as the fundamental statement of the Jewish faith) and in the High Holiday and festival prayers.
Already the first century philosopher Philo recognized that the acceptance of Scripture commits the Jew to certain fundamental beliefs such as the existence and unity of God, Divine Providence, and the revelation and eternity of the law.
During the Middle Ages, the question of the basic principles of Judaism acquired special importance in the light of the need to set Judaism apart from Karaism, on the one hand, and from Christianity and Islam on the other. The fact that other faiths had clear statements of dogma also influenced Jewish thinkers to emulation.
The best-known formulation of the creedal principles of Judaism is that of Moses Maimonides (12th cent.), who enumerated 13 Ikkarim ("roots" or "fundamentals") in his commentary on the aforementioned Mishnah in Sanhedrin (10:1). As such, his formulation (see inset) had halakhic implications, as it constituted a definition of the necessary and sufficient creedal requirements for membership in the community of Israel.
Maimonides' 13 Principles found their way into the prayer book as the popular hymn Yigdal and as a supplemental prose recitation after the prescribed Morning Service in the form of a personal affirmation: "I believe in perfect faith that ..."
Maimonides interpreted "World to Come" as immortality of the Soul, which he considered the ultimate spiritual reward or fulfillment of the human being. Since he believed that only the rational part of the soul could survive the death of the body, Maimonides found congenial the Mishnah's assertion that the "World to Come" was partly dependent upon intellectual perfection and the holding of correct beliefs. Other rabbinic leaders such as Abraham Ben David of Posquières, who agreed with Maimonides that all 13 were in some sense significant Jewish religious principles, were not prepared to assert that denial of a principle such as the "incorporeality of God" disqualifies a person for a share in the World to Come or for membership in the Jewish community.
The discussion over Principles of Faith continued up to the dawn of the modern era. During the 15th and 16th centuries, significant contributions within the traditional framework were made by Simeon ben Tsemaḥ Duran (Ohev Mishpat, Magen Avot), Ḥasdai Crescas (Or Adonai), Joseph Albo (Sefer ha-Ikkarim), Isaac Arama (Akedat Yitsḥak) and Isaac Abravanel (Rosh Amanah). The differences of opinion found in these works emanate from the lack of recognized criteria for what constitutes a "principle of faith" or what difference a principle makes for the practitioners of Judaism. For example, from a purely philosophical point of view it is very difficult to understand why Maimonides included the principle of "resurrection" or that "God alone is to be worshiped" and omitted a fundamental such as "freedom of the will." Albo suggests that the term ikkar ("principle") denotes "something upon which the existence and duration of another thing depends and without which it cannot endure"; in short, the necessary conditions of a faith-system. Albo admits three basic Principles of Judaism (or of any Divine law) but maintains that while the other principles listed by Maimonides are beliefs incumbent upon every Jew, their denial may not entail heresy. In Albo's scheme, each principle can be said to have "branches"; thus from God's existence is inferred His knowledge, unity, and incorporeality, from Providence is inferred the principles of Messiah and Resurrection, while from "revelation" come "prophecy" and the mission of Moses.
Arama suggests that in discussing the fundamentals of Judaism, it must be determined which concepts the Torah chose to emphasize. This can be seen in the conceptual elements behind the Sabbath and festivals, which yield Creation (Sabbath), God's Omnipotence (Passover), Prophecy and Divine Revelation (Shavu'ot), Providence (Rosh ha-Shanah), Repentance (Day of Atonement), and "World to Come" (Sukkot).
Abravanel rejects the entire notion of differentiating between principles and non-principles in Judaism and claims that Maimonides merely assembled a group of representative beliefs for those unable to perceive the intellectual presuppositions of their commitment to Judaism.
A modern treatment of the subject is found in Louis Jacobs' The Principles of Judaism (1964).
