Discussion about Maimonides’ Principles

 

In The Limits of Orthodox Theology: Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles Reappraised, Rabbi Dr. Marc B. Shapiro examines the thirteen principles that Maimonides outlines in his Commentary on the Mishnah, Introduction to Perek Chelek. As we will see, not everyone accepted these thirteen principles; many who reject them are well-respected Orthodox Jews.

Shapiro shows that traditional Orthodox sources, highly respected rabbis, dispute Maimonides’ beliefs radically and vituperatively. He gives examples proving that Orthodox Jews can hold nonconforming and dissenting views, even on fundamental beliefs, without being considered rebels against Judaism.

Shapiro reveals that many Jews, including rabbis, do not realize that Judaism allows a broad spectrum of beliefs. Their ignorance is caused by their narrow focus on the Talmuds, codes of Jewish law, and responsa literature, while ignoring the theological and philosophical literature.

He cites an example of one of the greatest halakhic authorities, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, who came to erroneous conclusions about Maimonides’ philosophy. “He was therefore able to state that Maimonides believed in the protective power of holy names and names of angels, as used in amulets.” This directly opposes Maimonides’ teaching in Mishnah Sotah 7:4 and the Guide for the Perplexed 1:61, 62.

Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles

Maimonides lists thirteen fundamental principles of Judaism, but other significant rabbis reject his list. For example, Shem Tov ben Joseph Falaquera (c. 1220–1290) identifies seven principles in one of his books and six in another – although his thirteen do not align with Maimonides’. Shimon ben Zemah Duran (1361–1444, in his Ohev mishpat) and Joseph Albo (fifteenth century, in Sefer Ha-ikkarim) list only three basic Jewish ideas that they feel every Jew must hold so that they not be considered a heretic. Hasdai Crescas (1340–1410, in Or ha-shem) writes of six cornerstones of faith that he is convinced are the foundation of the Torah. David ben Yom Tov ibn Bilia (fourteenth century) lists twenty-six principles of faith.

Don Isaac Abravanel (1437–1508, in Rosh Amanah) argues that each of the 613 Torah commandments is a fundamental concept of Judaism. Other rabbis and great Torah scholars dispute every one of Maimonides’ thirteen principles.

The following are Maimonides’ thirteen principles and the contrary views held by prominent rabbis.

1. God exists, is eternal, is perfect in every way, and is the cause of all existence, but He cannot do impossible things such as turning a triangle into a square. For example, the Tosaphist Rabbi Moses Taku (thirteenth century) was one of many who were convinced that God, who is all-powerful, can square a triangle and do other things that humans think are logically incongruous. (Tosaphists were the outstanding rabbis, principally of France and Germany in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, who wrote commentaries on the Talmud.)
2. God is an absolute unity. The renowned Rabbi Abraham ben David of Posquieres (known as Rabad, who lived around 1125–1198, during Maimonides’ lifetime) believed the opposite. He insists that there is a supreme deity (Ilat Ha’ilot) and a divine entity that was the manifestation of the Ilat Ha’ilot, the creator, called Yotzer Bereshit. He claims that we pray to the latter. Similarly, many Jewish mystics today believe that God is composed of ten distinct divine elements, each having a separate and different function. However, many of these mystics claim that God is still a unity.

3. God is incorporeal; He has no body or body parts. As stated previously, Rabad criticizes Maimonides with insulting vehemence: “There are many people greater and superior to him who adhere to such a belief [that God has a body like humans] based on what they have seen in verses of Scripture and even in the words of those aggadot which corrupt right opinion about religious matters.”
4. God existed before other beings and created the world from nothing. Abraham ibn Ezra (1089–1164), in his commentary to Genesis 1:1, states that God did not create from nothing; He gave form to eternal matter. In his Guide of the Perplexed 2:13, Maimonides openly confesses that he could believe that matter existed eternally. Many scholars feel sure that this was his true conviction and that this and the remaining ten principles were not written because Maimonides thought them to be true, but rather to mollify and satisfy the less educated public he felt needed to accept these ideas. We will discuss this view below.
5. Only God should be worshipped – not angels, stars, or other beings. Yet most Jews request angelic assistance every Friday night when they return home from the synagogue and chant the hymn to angels called Shalom Aleichem, which states: “Bless me for peace, angels of peace.” Maimonides allows the unphilosophically-minded masses to recite such prayers when it is psychologically necessary for them to do so, to assuage their fear, in his Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Tefillah 7:5.
6. God communicates to certain people through prophecy. In the final chapters of his second book, The Guide for the Perplexed, Maimonides explains that prophecy is not a communication from God but a higher level of knowledge. His view even prompts scholars to ask: “Wouldn’t the Greek philosopher Aristotle also be considered a prophet under this definition?” Some Maimonidean scholars answer, “yes.”
7. Moses was the greatest of the prophets. The Babylonian Talmud seems to disagree. Sanhedrin 21b states that Ezra was as great a prophet as Moses: “If Moses had not preceded him, Ezra would have been worthy to have the Torah revealed to Israel through him.” The Midrash Genesis Rabbah 14:34 even contends that the non-Israelite prophet Balaam was as great as Moses: “What prophet did they [non-Israelites] have who was like Moses? Balaam the son of Beor.”
8. The Torah was divinely revealed; the Torah in our hands today is precisely the same as the Torah that Moses presented to the Israelites. Maimonides knew this to be untrue. He knew of Torah texts with different readings and was responsible for deciding which was authoritative. The noted Bible commentator David Kimchi (Radak, 1160–1235) also recognizes that errors crept into the biblical text. He writes in his Peshat 141: These variant words apparently developed during the first exile (586 B.C.E.), the texts were lost, the scholars were dispersed, and the Torah scholars died. The men of the Great Assembly (led by Ezra), who restored the Torah to its former state, found differences in the text and followed the reading of those they believed to be the majority. When they were unclear about this, they wrote one version without pointing it out or in the margin and not in the text, or they wrote one version in the margin and one in the text. Rabbi Joseph Hertz (1872–1946) writes in his Torah commentary that the aleph in the first word of Leviticus is not part of the original text but was added later. The Midrash Numbers Rabbah and Avot d’Rabbi Natan recognize that the Masorites placed dots over certain words to indicate they doubted whether the received text was correct.

9. The Torah will never be changed in whole or in part. Many rabbis disagree with this statement. The Babylonian Talmud, Nidah 61b, for example, contains the classic opinion of Rabbi Joseph: “The mitzvot [commandments] will be abolished in the time to come.” The medieval scholar Rabbi Joseph Albo (fourteenth century, in his Sefer Ha-ikkarim) writes that a future prophet can abolish all of the biblical commands except for the Decalogue (the Ten Commandments).
10. God knows people’s actions. Maimonides does not state that God knows human thoughts. Abraham ibn Ezra comments on Genesis 18:21, “The whole [God] knows the individual in a general manner rather than a detailed manner.” Gersonides states this idea more clearly in his Milhamot Hashem, where he writes that God only knows the universal and not the particular.
11. Reward and punishment exist. Maimonides makes it clear in his Commentary on the Mishnah, Introduction to Perek Chelek, that reward and punishment do not occur after death; instead, they are natural occurrences experienced by people on earth.
12. The messiah will come. The Midrash Tanchuma (Acharei Mot 12) and the Midrash Tehilim 107:1 state that Jews will be saved in the future by God and not by any human. On the contrary, Hillel (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 99a) states that no messiah will come in the future because the messiah foretold in the Bible came in the days of King Hezekiah.
13. The dead will rise from their graves to live again. As recognized by Rabad (mentioned above) and others, Maimonides rejects this notion in his Commentary on the Mishnah, Introduction to Perek Chelek, and Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Teshuvah 8. As Rabad puts it: “There is no resurrection for bodies, but only for souls.” In Maimonidean terms, the intellect (not souls) lives after death and is never thereafter joined with a body.

Jews Differing about Jewish Doctrine

In short, while many believe that Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles summarize Judaism’s basic concepts, this notion is incorrect. Many well-respected rabbis and scholars hold different views of Judaism than those expressed in the Thirteen Principles. Thus, it should be evident that Judaism can accept a broad spectrum of other beliefs. This point becomes even clearer upon recognizing that Maimonides did not think all Thirteen Principles were correct.

Was Maimonides Telling People What to Believe?

In his Rosh Amanah (Principles of Faith), Don Isaac Abravanel points out that Hasdai Crescas and his pupil Joseph Albo criticize Maimonides but do not understand him. Their primary complaint is that Maimonides mandates that Jews believe certain dogmas. But, they ask, how can one force another to believe anything? Accordingly, Crescas develops a list of six articles of Judaism and Albo three.

Abravanel explains that Crescas and Albo overlook two critical points. First, Maimonides did not tell the people to believe any particular idea. He knew that people could not be forced to believe anything. He was not speaking about belief, but about knowledge.

The word “belief” is not in Maimonides’ formulation in Chelek, although it plays a prominent part in the popular version in the siddur’s Ani Maamin. The word used in the formulation in Chelek is ikkarim, which means “fundamentals.”

In Chelek, Maimonides tells his readers to study and understand the truth about the thirteen fundamentals. Second, Abravanel writes that Maimonides is not postulating “true articles of Judaism” but ad hoc “necessary dogmas” that the people needed to help them survive. What are “necessary beliefs”?

Did Maimonides Accept All Thirteen Principles?

Menachem Kellner[1] writes that Don Isaac Abravanel (in his Rosh Amanah) and many others recognize that Maimonides composed his principles for the less educated public to give them information and to strengthen their belief in Judaism. Abravanel faults those who take “Maimonides’ words at face value.”

Leo Strauss and Shlomo Pines[2], Yeshayahu Leibovits[3] and other scholars posit that there is an “exoteric and esoteric Maimonides.” Exoteric statements are ideas that Maimonides writes, which he does not view as accurate but rather as necessary to help the less educated masses, the majority of Jews, because he believes that they will feel threatened if they are told these ideas are untrue. The esoteric statements are hints that Maimonides does not state explicitly, but which he expects the learned Jew, who knows both Jewish and non-Jewish studies, to mine from his writings and understand.

His writings support this exoteric-esoteric approach to understanding Maimonides. In his Guide for the Perplexed 3:28, he explains that there are two kinds of beliefs: true beliefs and necessary beliefs. “True beliefs” are statements that express a truth that can help one understand an idea and grow intellectually. These are what Strauss, Pines, Leibowitz, and others called esoteric teachings.

A “necessary belief” is a tradition, a mistaken or wrong notion, rather than a fact. These beliefs are not taught as truths, but to fulfill a social purpose, such as instilling obedience to the Torah, regulating social relations, improving human or social qualities, or alleviating fears. These are his exoteric statements.

Maimonides was not the first to recognize the importance of teaching “necessary [but untrue] beliefs.” The Greek philosopher Plato wrote in his Republic and other works that the masses must be taught untruthful myths to survive.

Examples of “Necessary Beliefs”

Maimonides gives many examples of “necessary beliefs.” He states, for instance, that the Torah teaches that God becomes angry with those who disobey Him, even though this is only a “necessary belief.” God does not become angry. The Torah transmitted the idea that God becomes angry because it is “necessary” for the masses to believe that God is angry if they disobey Him, so that they can control and improve their behavior.

Similarly, the belief that God responds immediately to prayer is not a “true belief” but a “necessary” one, expressed to make the masses feel better and less fearful.

In his Letter to Yemen, Maimonides used necessary beliefs to write to the persecuted Jews of Yemen. In his letter, he assures the Yemenite Jews that the messiah will be coming soon to relieve their suffering, even though he was convinced that this matter was impossible to predict. The Yemenites never forgot Maimonides’ consolation, and to this day, they thank and praise him daily when they recite their Kaddish prayer.

 

[1] Rosh amanah (Principles of faith).

[2] In two introductory essays to the Guide for the Perplexed, 1963.

[3] In the several books of Conversations with Yeshayahu Leibovits published between 1995 and 2003.