Moses Mendelssohn (1728-1786), who strongly maintained that Judaism
is a life, not a creed, made the practice of formulating Articles of
Judaism unfashionable. But not for long. More and more, Judaic ritual has
fallen into disregard since the French Revolution. Judaism has therefore
tended to express itself as a system of doctrines rather than as a body
of practices. And there was a special reason why the Maimonist Articles
could not remain. Reference is not meant to the fact that many Jews came
to doubt the Mosaic origin of the Pentateuch. But there were lacking in
the Maimonist Creed all emotional elements. On the one hand, Maimonides,
rationalist and anti-Mystic as he was, makes no allowance for the doctrine
of the Immanence of God. Then, owing to his unemotional nature, he laid
no stress on all the affecting and moving associations of the belief in
the Mission of Israel as the Chosen People. Before Maimonides, if there
had been one dogma of Judaism at all, it was the Election of Israel.
Jehuda Halevi, the greatest of the Hebrew poets of the Middle Ages,
had at the beginning of the twelfth century, some half century before
Maimonides, given expression to this in the famous epigram: 'Israel is
to the nations like the heart to the limbs.'
Though, however, the Creed of Maimonides has no position of authority
in the Synagogue, modern times have witnessed no successful intrusion of
a rival. Most writers of treatises on Judaism prefer to describe rather
than to define the religious tenets of the faith. In America there have
been several suggestions of a Creed. Articles of faith have been there
chiefly formulated for the reception of proselytes. This purpose is a
natural cause of precision in belief; for while one who already stands
within by birth or race is rarely called upon to justify his faith,
the newcomer is under the necessity to do so. In the pre-Christian
Judaism it is probable that there was a Catechism or short manual of
instruction called in Greek the _Didache_, in which the Golden Rule
in Hillel's negative form and the Decalogue occupied a front place. Thus
we find, too, modern American Jews formulating Articles of Faith as a
Proselyte Confession. In 1896 the Central Conference of American Rabbis
adopted the following five principles for such a Confession: (i) God
the Only One; (ii) Man His Image; (iii) Immortality of the Soul; (iv)
Retribution; (v) Israel's Mission. During the past few months a tract,
entitled 'Essentials of Judaism,' has been issued in London by the Jewish
Religious Union. The author, N. S. Joseph, is careful to explain that he
is not putting forth these principles as 'dogmatic Articles of Faith,'
and that they are solely 'suggestive outlines of belief which may be
gradually imparted to children, the outlines being afterwards filled
up by the teacher. But the eight paragraphs of these Essentials are at
once so ably compiled and so informing as to the modern trend of Jewish
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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