20th Century Jewish Religious Thought: Original Essays on Critical Concepts, Movements, and Beliefs

Dogma

Dogllla Menachem Kellner I f we understand dogma to mean selected beliefs or teachings set down by competent authority as the sine qua non of Jewish faith and thereby distinguished from and valued as more important than other beliefs and teachings ofJudaism, it must be concluded that biblical and talmudic Judaism, with the possible exception of Sanhedrin 10:1, have no dogmas. Indeed, according to this definition it may be asserted that the first statement of dogmas in mainstream rabbinic Judaism was that of Moses Maimonides. This is not to say that biblical and rabbinic literature do not teach specific beliefs; they do, but none of the beliefs cited is singled out as enjoying special status. To claim that Maimonides was the first Jew to posit dogmas in Judaism is also not to maintain that no Jewish thinkers before Maimonides discussed specific beliefs of Judaism. They did, as, for example, in Saadiah Gaon's Sefer Emunot ve-Deot (Book of Beliefs and Opinions), Bal).ya ibn Paquda's ljovot ha-Levavot (Duties of the Heart), and Judah Halevi's Kuzari; however, none of these authors singled out any beliefs as having a status-salvational, logical, or pedagogical-more fundamental than that accorded to other beliefs. 142 DOGMA The absence of dogma in traditional Judaism ought not to be surprising. There is nothing in the nature of monotheistic faith that necessitates its being presented in creedal form. Judaism, as expressed in biblical and rabbinic texts, does not specify some beliefs as dogmas. Rather it emphasizes practice-the fulfillment of the mi~ot-over theology-which might include, for example, determining who a Jew is and how one achieves a portion in the World to Come with little explicit reference to beliefs-and it defines the term faith less in terms of specific propositions that are to be accepted or rejected (beliefs) than in terms of trust and reliance. In other words, one may say, for example, that biblical and rabbinic Judaism demands belief in God rather than belief that God exists. In this regard it is instructive to compare Ecclesiastes 12:13 with Romans 10:9. Both early Islam and Karaite Judaism adopted the tools of Greek philosophy and logic, which defined belief (in Greek, pistis) in explicitly propositional terms.l Such religious movements could not be ignored by the Judaism of that era, and in their attempt to expound and defend Judaism in this context, medieval Jewish thinkers began to conceive of the nature of belief in propositional terms. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the first systematic exposition of Jewish beliefs was undertaken by Saadiah Gaon, in light of his exposure to the latest currents of Moslem thought in tenth-century Baghdad and his involvement in the struggle against Karaism. Once the term belief was defined in terms of specific propositions to be accepted or rejected, as opposed to an attitude of trust and reliance upon God and acceptance of his Torah, it was only a question of time until an attempt would be made to codify in creedal fashion the most important beliefs of Judaism. That two hundred years were still to elapse between the provocations of Saadiah's day and the enterprise of Maimonides is a tribute to the conservative nature of the Jewish tradition. That Maimonides undertook the project at all is a tribute to his boldness. In 1168 Maimonides completed his first major work, the commentary on the Mishnah. In the course of this work Maimonides commented on Mishnah Sanhedrin 10:1, which reads as follows: All Israelites have a share in the world to come, as it is written, "Thy people also shall be all righteous, they shall inherit the land forever; the branch of my planting ' the work of my hands, wherein I glory" (Isa. 60:21). But the following do not have a share in the world to come: he who says that resurrection is not taught in the Torah, he who says that the Torah was not divinely revealed, and the epikoros ... By way of interpreting this text Maimonides composed a lengthy essay in which, among other things, he defines the various terms occurring in the DOGMA 143 mishnah under discussion.2 It was apparently by way of defining the term Israelites in this mishnah that Maimonides listed those thirteen beliefs that, in his estimation, every jew qua jew had to accept. These beliefs, known as the Thirteen Principles...