Jewish principles of faith
A universal formulation of principles of faith, recognized across all branches of Judaism, remains undefined. There is no central authority in Judaism in existence today, although the Sanhedrin, the supreme Jewish religious court, could fulfill this role for some if it were re-established. Instead, Jewish principles of faith remain debated by the rabbis based on their understanding of the sacred writings, laws, and traditions, which collectively shape Jewish theological and ethical frameworks.
The most widely recognized existing version is the 13 principles outlined by Maimonides. He stressed the importance of believing that there is one single, omniscient, transcendent, non-corporeal, non-compound God who created the universe and continues to interact with his creation and judge souls' reward or punishment. Other principles include the future emergence of the Messiah, the resurrection of the dead, and the principle that God revealed his laws and 613 mitzvot to the Jewish people in the form of the Written and Oral Torahs.
Conception of God
Monotheism
Judaism is based on a strict, absolute monotheism—a belief in one single, indivisible, non-compound God. This is illustrated in what is considered the closest to a statement of belief that Judaism has: the Shema, which encapsulates the fundamentally monotheistic theology of Judaism: "Hear, O Israel: The is our God; the is one.""Judaism emphatically rejects any concept of plurality with respect to God," according to Aryeh Kaplan, explicitly rejecting polytheism, dualism, and trinitarianism, which are "incompatible with monotheism as Judaism understands it." The unity of God is noted many times in Jewish tradition, including as the second of the Maimonidean principles of faith:
In Jewish tradition, dualistic and trinitarian conceptions of God are generally referred to as shituf, which, though incorrect, is not synonymous with idolatry.
God is the creator of the universe
Traditionally, Jews believe that God is the creator of the universe, though contemporary Jewish sects differ in their interpretation of the Genesis creation narrative. For example, some strictly Orthodox groups, such as Chabad, reject the theory of evolution and the scientific consensus on the age of Earth in favor of young Earth creationism, dating creation to year 1 of the Hebrew calendar. Conversely, some Orthodox and most non-Orthodox Jews reject a literal interpretation of the creation narrative, believing that Judaism does not conflict with the scientific view that the universe is billions of years old. Norbert M. Samuelson writes the "question of dating the universe has never been a problem of Jewish philosophy, ultimately because that philosophy has never taken the literal meaning of the Bible to be its revealed, true meaning".Maimonides wrote that "by virtue of the existence of the Creator, everything exists", and that "time itself is part of creation"; therefore, "when God is described as existing before the creation of the universe, the notion of time should not be understood in its normal sense". The 15th-century Jewish philosopher Joseph Albo argued similarly in his Sefer ha-Ikkarim that there are two types of time: "Measured time which depends on motion, and time in the abstract", the second of which has no origin and is "the infinite space of time before the universe was created". Albo argued that "although it is difficult to conceive of God existing in such a duration, it is likewise difficult to imagine God outside space". Other Jewish writers have come to different conclusions, such as 13th-century scholar Bahya ben Asher, 16th-century scholar Moses Almosnino, and the 18th-century Hasidic teacher Nahman of Bratslav, who expressed a view—similar to that expressed by the Christian Neo-Platonic writer Boethius—that God "lives in the eternal present" and transcends or is above all time.
Nature of God
The Jewish view is that God is eternal, with "neither beginning nor end", a principle stated in a number of biblical passages. The rabbis taught a "quite literally... down-to-earth" view of the eternalness of God: "God is eternal, but it is not given to man to explore the full meaning of this idea." So, "one cannot, therefore, expect to find in the rabbinic literature anything like a detailed examination of what is meant by divine eternity." A famous statement in the Mishnah that attempts to "pierce the veil" is this: "Whoever reflects on four things, it were better for him that he had not come into the world: "What is above? What is beneath? what is before? and what is after?"Various Jewish thinkers, however, have proposed a "finite God", sometimes in response to the problem of evil and ideas about free will. Louis Jacobs writes that modern Jewish thinkers such as Levi Olan, echoing some classical Jewish writers such as the 14th-century Talmudist Gersonides, have "thought of God as limited by His own nature so that while He is infinite in some respects he is finite in others", referencing the idea, present in classical sources, that "there is a primal formless material co-existent with God from all eternity upon which God has to work, and that God only knows the future in a general sense, but not how individual men will exercise their choice". On the topic of omniscience and free will, Jacobs writes that in the medieval period, three views were put forth: Maimonides, who wrote that God had foreknowledge and man is free; Gersonides, who wrote that man is free and consequently God does not have complete knowledge, and Hasdai Crescas, who wrote in Or Adonai that God has complete foreknowledge and consequently man is not really free.
Several Jewish writers have dealt with the issue of theodicy: whether and how God is all-powerful and all-good, given the existence of evil in the world, particularly the Holocaust. Jon D. Levenson argues that omnipotence doctrine fails to "give due regard to "'the formidability and resilience of the forces counteracting creation" and "leads to a neglect of the role of humanity in forming and stating the world order. Hans Jonas proposed a "tentative myth" that "God 'chose' in the beginning to give God's self 'over to the chance and risk and endless variety of becoming, entering into the adventure of space in time". Jonas said, "God does not create the world by fiat, but leads it by beckoning it into novel possibilities of becoming. Jonas, who was influenced by the Holocaust experience, believed that God is omnipresent, but not "in all respects non-temporal, impassible, immutable, and unqualified omnipotent."
Traditionally, Judaism views God as a personal god. This is shown in the Jewish liturgy, such as in the Adon Olam hymn, which includes a "confident affirmation" that "He is my God, my living God...Who hears and answers". Edward Kessler writes that the Hebrew Bible "portrays an encounter with a God who cares passionately and who addresses humanity in the quiet moments of its existence." British chief rabbi Jonathan Sacks suggests that God "is not distant in time or detached, but passionately engaged and present." The predicate 'personal' as applied to God does not mean that God is corporeal or anthropomorphic, views which Judaism has always rejected; instead, "personality" refers not to physicality, but to "inner essence, psychical, rational, and moral". Although most Jews believe that "God can be experienced", it is understood that "God cannot be understood" because "God is utterly unlike humankind" ; all anthropomorphic statements about God "are understood as linguistic metaphors; otherwise, it would be impossible to talk about God at all".
Although the dominant strain in Judaism is that God is personal, there is an "alternate stream of tradition exemplified by... Maimonides", who, along with several other Jewish philosophers, rejected the idea of a personal God. This reflected his belief in negative theology: that God can only be described by what God is not. Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, who developed Reconstructionist Judaism and taught at the Conservative Jewish Theological Seminary of America, also rejected the idea of a personal God. Kaplan instead thought of God "as a force, like gravity, built into the very structure of the universe", believing that "since the universe is constructed to enable us to gain personal happiness and communal solidarity when we act morally, it follows that there is a moral force in the universe; this force is what the Constructionists mean by God", although some Reconstructionists do believe in a personal God. According to Joseph Telushkin and Morris N. Kertzer, Kaplan's "rationalist rejection of the traditional Jewish understanding of God exerted a powerful influence" on many Conservative and Reform rabbis, influencing many to stop believing in a personal God". According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life's 2008 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, Americans who identify as Jewish by religion are twice as likely to favor ideas of God as "an impersonal force" over the idea that "God is a person with whom people can have a relationship".