Maimonides' 13 Principles of Faith: List and Sources

“Do Jews have a creed?” The question comes as a surprise, because Judaism is readily presented as a religion of practice more than of dogma. Yet every morning, very many communities sing Yigdal or recite Ani Maamin (“I believe with perfect faith…”), two texts that put into verse and into prose a list of thirteen points drawn up by Maimonides in the twelfth century. What exactly does this list contain, where does it come from, what foundations does it have in the Torah and the Talmud, and why was it already being debated in the Middle Ages? This article answers from the texts themselves, distinguishing what belongs to halakha (the law that is practiced), to philosophy and to spiritual reading.

In short: the thirteen principles (yesodot ha-emuna, “foundations of faith”) are a summary of the beliefs a Jew is to hold, formulated by Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, the Rambam (Maimonides, 1138-1204), in his introduction to the chapter “Chelek” of tractate Sanhedrin, in his Commentary on the Mishna. They concern G-d (existence, unity, incorporeality, eternity, exclusive worship), prophecy and the Torah (prophecy, the superiority of Moshe, the heavenly origin of the Torah, its immutability), divine justice (knowledge of human deeds, reward and punishment) and the future (the coming of the Mashiach, the resurrection of the dead). It is not a text of the Talmud or a ruling of the Shulchan Aruch: it is the work of a master, adopted by the liturgy and discussed by other masters. We will see what it affirms, what it leaves aside, and what its critics have said about it.

Where and Why Did Maimonides Write These Principles?

The Rambam was born in Cordoba, Spain, in 1138 according to the date most often accepted. When the Almohads conquered the city in 1148, his family left Spain; after years of wandering (Fez, the Land of Israel), it settled in Egypt, at Fustat, near Cairo, where he died in 1204. There he composed three monumental works: the Commentary on the Mishna (completed around 1168), the Mishneh Torah, a code of all Jewish law (around 1180), and the Guide for the Perplexed (around 1190). His principles of faith belong to the first.

The Commentary on the Mishna is written in Judeo-Arabic, and the passage that concerns us is read today in Hebrew translations. In chapter 10 of Sanhedrin, the Mishna opens with this sentence:

“All Israel has a share in the World to Come (…). And these are the ones who have no share in the World to Come: one who says that there is no resurrection of the dead in the Torah, and that the Torah did not come from heaven, and the epicurean (apikoros).”

(Mishna Sanhedrin 10:1) — כָּל יִשְׂרָאֵל יֵשׁ לָהֶם חֵלֶק לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא (…) הָאוֹמֵר אֵין תְּחִיַּת הַמֵּתִים מִן הַתּוֹרָה, וְאֵין תּוֹרָה מִן הַשָּׁמָיִם, וְאֶפִּיקוֹרֶס.

This chapter, which is called Perek Chelek after its first words (“All Israel has a share”), is thus the place where the Mishna itself speaks of beliefs that condition one’s share in the World to Come. Maimonides uses it to write a long introduction: he first describes people’s errors about the World to Come and about reward, then distinguishes three ways of receiving the words of the Sages (taking them all literally, mocking them as absurdities, or recognizing in them images and riddles that conceal a meaning), and finally lists “the foundations of the Torah of Moshe” (Rambam, Commentary on the Mishna, Sanhedrin 10, introduction). His stated aim is pedagogical: that each person know what he must believe, and not only what he must do.

The Thirteen Principles One by One

Here is the list, in Maimonides’ order, with the verse he associates with each one when he cites one, and what he says about it. For clarity, they are grouped into four sets.

G-d: Existence, Unity, Incorporeality, Eternity, Exclusive Worship (Principles 1 to 5)

1. The existence of the Creator. There is a Being perfect in every way, the cause of the existence of everything that exists.

“The first foundation: to believe in the existence of the Creator, blessed be He; that is, that there is a Being perfect in every way of existing, who is the cause of the existence of all beings.”

(Rambam, Commentary on the Mishna, Sanhedrin 10, 1st foundation) — היסוד הראשון להאמין מציאות הבורא יתברך והוא שיש שם נמצא שלם בכל דרכי המציאות הוא עילת מציאות הנמצאים כלם

The verse invoked is the first of the Ten Utterances: “I am the L-rd your G-d, who brought you out of the land of Egypt” (Shemot 20:2). In the Mishneh Torah, he opens the whole work in the same way: “The foundation of foundations and the pillar of the sciences is to know that there is a First Being, who brings into existence everything that exists” (Rambam, Hilkhot Yesodei HaTorah 1:1) — יסוד היסודות ועמוד החכמות לידע שיש שם מצוי ראשון. Note the verb: “to know.” For Maimonides, faith in G-d is also a knowledge to be acquired, which distinguishes him from those who see in faith only an adherence of the heart (we will come back to this).

2. His unity. The Rambam specifies: G-d is not “one” in the way a pair is made up of two, nor in the way a species contains several individuals, nor in the way a body can be divided.

“…but He, blessed be His Name, is One with a unity that has no equal.”

(Rambam, Commentary on the Mishna, Sanhedrin 10, 2nd foundation) — אבל הוא הש”י אחד באחדות שאין כמותה אחדות

He cites the Shema: “Hear, O Israel, the L-rd is our G-d, the L-rd is One” (Devarim 6:4). In the Mishneh Torah, he makes this knowledge a positive mitzva (Hilkhot Yesodei HaTorah 1:7).

3. He has no body. None of the properties of bodies, movement, rest, division, applies to Him. The passages of the Torah that speak of G-d’s “hand” or “eye” are images.

“And everything that appears in the holy Scriptures that describes Him with bodily attributes, such as walking, standing, sitting, speaking, and the like, all of this is by way of metaphor.”

(Rambam, Commentary on the Mishna, Sanhedrin 10, 3rd foundation) — וכל מה שבא בכתבי הקדש שמתארים אותו בתארי הגופות כמו ההליכה והעמידה והישיבה והדבור וכיוצא בזה הכל דרך השאלה

He relies on the Sages’ formula, “the Torah spoke in the language of human beings” (Berakhot 31b, which the text cites), and on Devarim 4:15: “You saw no form…” (ki lo ritem kol temuna). This third principle is one of the most debated, as we will see with the Raavad.

4. His eternity. G-d is “first” and nothing exists before Him. The term has only one meaning here: G-d is eternal (kadmon) and everything else exists in relation to Him. This should not be confused with the question of the eternity of the world, which Maimonides treats at length in the Guide for the Perplexed (Book II) and on which he concludes that the world was created. The verse cited by the Rambam is “A dwelling place, the G-d of old” (Devarim 33:27); tradition associates with it “I am the first and I am the last” (Yeshayahu 44:6), which Ani Maamin takes up.

5. G-d alone deserves to be worshipped. Not the angels, not the stars, not the forces of nature: prayer and worship are directed only to Him, and one does not use these intermediaries to “draw closer to Him.” This principle is the prohibition of idolatry: “You shall have no other gods before My face” (Shemot 20:3), and the Rambam describes it as the one against which “the greater part of the Torah” comes to warn.

Prophecy and the Torah (Principles 6 to 9)

6. Prophecy. There exist men, of exceptional nature and qualities, whose intellect unites with a higher source: these are the prophets. The Torah attests to many prophets.

7. The prophecy of Moshe, the highest. Moshe is the father of all the prophets who preceded or followed him, and no one will reach his level. The Rambam notes four differences between his prophecy and that of the others: he receives the word without an intermediary (“mouth to mouth I speak with him,” Bamidbar 12:8); he receives it awake, by day, and not in a dream or a vision; he does not tremble, whereas the other prophets are overwhelmed (“as a man speaks to his friend,” Shemot 33:11); and he can prophesy whenever he wishes, whereas the others wait for the spirit to come upon them (Commentary on the Mishna, Sanhedrin 10, 7th foundation; Hilkhot Yesodei HaTorah 7:6). The basic verses are:

“Not so with My servant Moshe: he is trusted in all My house. Mouth to mouth I speak with him, plainly and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of the L-rd.”

(Bamidbar 12:7-8) — לֹא־כֵן עַבְדִּי מֹשֶׁה בְּכׇל־בֵּיתִי נֶאֱמָן הוּא׃ פֶּה אֶל־פֶּה אֲדַבֶּר־בּוֹ וּמַרְאֶה וְלֹא בְחִידֹת וּתְמֻנַת ה׳ יַבִּיט

8. The Torah comes from heaven. This is the strongest point of the list. The Torah we have is the one that Moshe received, and he wrote it “like a scribe taking dictation.”

“There is no difference between ‘The sons of Cham: Cush and Mitzrayim’ (…) and ‘I am the L-rd your G-d’ and ‘Hear, O Israel’: everything comes from the mouth of the Almighty.”

(Rambam, Commentary on the Mishna, Sanhedrin 10, 8th foundation) — אין הפרש בין ובני חם כוש ומצרים ושם אשתו מהטבאל ותמנע היתה פלגש ובין אנכי ה’ אלהיך ושמע ישראל כי הכל מפי הגבורה

The Rambam specifies that this holds also for the oral Torah, that is, the transmitted explanation of the mitzvot: what we do today with the sukka, the lulav, the shofar, the tzitzit and the tefillin is “the very form that G-d told Moshe.” The Talmudic source is the baraita of Sanhedrin 99a, read in this way by Maimonides:

“Even if he says: the whole Torah comes from heaven, except for this verse, which the Holy One, blessed be He, did not say, but which Moshe said on his own, this is the one of whom it is written: ‘for he has despised the word of the L-rd’ (Bamidbar 15:31).”

(Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 99a) — וַאֲפִילּוּ אָמַר כׇּל הַתּוֹרָה כּוּלָּהּ מִן הַשָּׁמַיִם, חוּץ מִפָּסוּק זֶה שֶׁלֹּא אֲמָרוֹ הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא אֶלָּא מֹשֶׁה מִפִּי עַצְמוֹ

The verse Maimonides himself invokes is Moshe’s word before Korach: “By this you shall know that the L-rd has sent me to do all these things, for it is not from my own heart” (Bamidbar 16:28).

9. The Torah is immutable. It will not be replaced by another, and nothing will be added to it or taken from it, in either the written Torah or the oral Torah: “You shall not add to what I command you, nor take anything from it” (Devarim 13:1; see also Devarim 4:2). The Mishneh Torah develops this: no prophet, even equipped with signs and wonders, has the right to abolish a mitzva, for the Torah “is not in heaven” (Devarim 30:12; Rambam, Hilkhot Yesodei HaTorah 9:1). A textual note: the current edition of the Commentary on the Mishna carries two formulations here (“the transmission” or “the abrogation”), a sign of a passage that was the subject of scribal corrections; the meaning of the statement, however, is not in doubt: the Torah of Moshe cannot be abrogated.

Divine Justice (Principles 10 and 11)

10. G-d knows the deeds of human beings. He has not turned His eyes away from them, unlike those who say “the L-rd has forsaken the earth” (Yechezkel 8:12; 9:9). Verse cited: “Great in counsel and mighty in deed, Your eyes are open upon all the ways of the sons of men” (Yirmeyahu 32:19).

11. G-d rewards and punishes. He rewards whoever observes the Torah, He punishes whoever transgresses it; the greatest reward is the World to Come, the gravest punishment is karet (being “cut off”). The verse cited is Moshe’s prayer: “And now, if You will forgive their sin… and if not, blot me out of Your book,” and the answer: “Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him out of My book” (Shemot 32:32-33).

The Future: the Mashiach and the Resurrection (Principles 12 and 13)

12. The days of the Mashiach. The Mashiach will come, and one must not think that he is delayed.

“And even if he tarries, wait for him; do not set a date for him.”

(Rambam, Commentary on the Mishna, Sanhedrin 10, 12th foundation) — ולא יחשב שיתאחר אם יתמהמה חכה לו

He relies on Chavakuk 2:3: “If it tarries, wait for it, for it will surely come, it will not delay” (אִם־יִתְמַהְמָהּ חַכֵּה־לוֹ כִּי־בֹא יָבֹא לֹא יְאַחֵר). He adds that whoever calculates the end of days falls under the saying of the Sages: “May those who calculate the ends expire” (Sanhedrin 97b, which Maimonides cites in the form “may their spirit be extinguished”). The Mishneh Torah describes the Mashiach as a king from the house of David who restores the kingship, rebuilds the Temple and gathers the dispersed of Israel (Hilkhot Melakhim 11:1). He specifies that nothing will change in the order of the world: the verse about the wolf and the lamb is “a parable” (Hilkhot Melakhim 12:1), and he urges that one not lose oneself in the details:

“And likewise, let him not calculate the ends.”

(Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Melakhim 12:2) — וְכֵן לֹא יְחַשֵּׁב הַקִּצִּין

13. The resurrection of the dead. The Rambam does not develop this principle in the introduction (“we have already explained it”; see earlier in the same introduction), because he treats it elsewhere. Its source is in the Mishna itself: those who deny the resurrection are deprived of the World to Come (Mishna Sanhedrin 10:1), and in the Talmud, which asks “where is the resurrection in the Torah?” (Sanhedrin 90b). Rabbi Yochanan reads there the verse on Aharon’s terumah (Bamidbar 18:28) and Rabbi Simai a verse about the patriarchs (Shemot 6:4). The prophets announce it: “Your dead shall live, my corpses shall rise” (Yeshayahu 26:19); “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake” (Daniel 12:2).

“Believing” or “Knowing”? What Maimonides Really Asks

A reader today hears “principle of faith” as “something to believe without proof.” Maimonides has another idea. For him, several of these principles are truths one must seek to understand: the existence and unity of G-d are a “foundation of foundations” that must be known (Hilkhot Yesodei HaTorah 1:1 and 1:7), and, through meditation on creation, a person comes to love and fear G-d (Hilkhot Yesodei HaTorah 2:1-2). He writes in Hilkhot Yesodei HaTorah that one loves G-d by contemplating “His wondrous works and creatures.”

Jewish tradition nevertheless knows another axis, that of emuna as trust, as faithfulness. This is the meaning of the verse about Avraham: “He believed in the L-rd, and He counted it to him as righteousness” (Bereshit 15:6, וְהֶאֱמִן בַּיהוָה וַיַּחְשְׁבֶהָ לּוֹ צְדָקָה), and of the verse about Israel at the edge of the sea: “They believed in the L-rd and in Moshe His servant” (Shemot 14:31). The prophet Chavakuk sums up: “The righteous shall live by his faith (emunato)” (Chavakuk 2:4; the Talmud, Makkot 24a, makes it the summary of the whole Torah). For the Sages, believing is not only admitting a proposition: it is holding on faithfully, durably, through trial. Both dimensions, knowing and trusting, are found in Judaism, and Maimonides himself does not set them against each other: he asks that one understand as much as one can, and hold on to what exceeds understanding.

Who Is Outside? Min, Apikoros, Kofer Ba’ikar

The end of Maimonides’ introduction is the most delicate part. After listing the thirteen foundations, he writes: whoever believes all these things “enters the community of Israel,” one must love him and treat him with brotherhood, even if he commits transgressions out of passion: he will be punished according to his transgressions, but he has a share in the World to Come.

“And even if he committed the transgressions that his desire and the force of his baser nature led him to commit, he is punished according to his sins, but he has a share in the World to Come, and he is among the transgressors of Israel.”

(Rambam, Commentary on the Mishna, Sanhedrin 10, conclusion) — ואפי’ עשה מה שיכול מן העבירות מחמת התאוה והתגברות הטבע הגרוע הוא נענש כפי חטאיו אבל יש לו חלק לעוה”ב והוא מפושעי ישראל

Conversely, if one of these foundations is impaired, “he has left the community, he has denied the principle (kafar ba’ikar), he is called a min, an apikoros and ‘one who cuts down the plantings'” (same passage). The Rambam adds that one has a duty to hate him and to cause him to disappear, citing Psalm 139:21. This severity must be read in the medieval context of an author who wants to defend the community against doctrines perceived as undermining it, and it is to be distinguished from what halakha applies in practice. The terms are defined more precisely in the Mishneh Torah:

the five kinds of “minim” (heretics): one who denies G-d; one who admits two or more powers; one who attributes to Him a body and a form; one who says that He is not the sole first one and creator of everything; one who worships a star or a constellation as an intermediary (Hilkhot Teshuva 3:7);
the three kinds of “apikorsim”: one who denies all prophecy; one who denies the prophecy of Moshe; one who says that the Creator does not know the deeds of human beings (Hilkhot Teshuva 3:8);
the three kinds of “kofrim ba-Torah”: those who say that the Torah does not come from G-d, even a single verse; who deny the oral Torah; or who claim that it has been replaced (Hilkhot Teshuva 3:8).

But the Rambam immediately adds two decisive corrections. First correction: teshuva (repentance) erases everything.

“Even if he denied the principle all his life and repents at the end, he has a share in the World to Come.”

(Rambam, Hilkhot Teshuva 3:14) — אֲפִלּוּ כָּפַר בָּעִקָּר כָּל יָמָיו וּבָאַחֲרוֹנָה שָׁב יֵשׁ לוֹ חֵלֶק לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא

Second correction: the descendants of those who went astray are not judged like them. Regarding the Karaites, who reject the oral Torah, he writes that their sons and grandsons, raised in error, are “like a child who was taken captive among them”:

“He is like a child taken captive among them and raised by them, for he is as if compelled. (…) One must therefore bring them back to teshuva and draw them with words of peace.”

(Rambam, Hilkhot Mamrim 3:3) — הֲרֵי הוּא כְּתִינוֹק שֶׁנִּשְׁבָּה בֵּינֵיהֶם (…) לְפִיכָךְ רָאוּי לְהַחְזִירָן בִּתְשׁוּבָה וּלְמָשְׁכָם בְּדִבְרֵי שָׁלוֹם

This is the origin of the “tinok shenishba” (“captured child”), a concept that halakhic authorities later applied to Jews raised far from the Torah: they are not treated as heretics, but as brothers to be drawn closer. One must therefore guard against deriving from Maimonides’ list a tribunal that would exclude whoever doubts or whoever is ignorant: that is not the tone of his own halakha. For any personal case, one should consult a rabbi.

What the Principles Do Not Say

A list presupposes choices. Maimonides’ choices surprised people as early as the Middle Ages by what they leave out.

Free will. The Rambam writes in the Mishneh Torah: “Everyone has the possibility of inclining toward good or toward evil” (Hilkhot Teshuva 5:1), and he adds: “This is a great principle (ikar gadol), the pillar of the Torah and of the mitzva” (Hilkhot Teshuva 5:3) — וְדָבָר זֶה עִקָּר גָּדוֹל הוּא וְהוּא עַמּוּד הַתּוֹרָה וְהַמִּצְוָה. And yet it does not appear among the thirteen. Rabbi Yosef Albo noted this in the fifteenth century (see below).
The creation of the world. Principle 4 speaks of the eternity of G-d, not of creation ex nihilo; Maimonides treats the subject separately in the Guide for the Perplexed.
The election of Israel, the Land of Israel, the mitzvot themselves. None appears as a foundation.
The miracles of the Torah, the divine presence (Shekhina) in Israel. Albo also makes this remark.

It must be added that Maimonides does not claim to draw up a list of everything the Torah requires one to believe: he says that he is gathering what is “a foundation” of the Torah of Moshe.

The Critics: Raavad, Albo, Abravanel

The list did not win unanimity. Here are the main voices, so that the reader may see the discussion as it is.

The Raavad (Rabbi Avraham ben David of Posquières, twelfth century) criticizes, in his glosses on the Mishneh Torah, the definition of the heretic who attributes a body to G-d (principle 3):

“And why did he call him a ‘min’? For many people greater and better than he have followed this thought, according to what they saw in the verses and, even more, in the words of the Aggada that confuse minds.”

(Raavad on Rambam, Hilkhot Teshuva 3:7) — וכמה גדולים וטובים ממנו הלכו בזו המחשבה לפי מה שראו במקראות ויותר ממה שראו בדברי האגדות המשבשות את הדעות

In other words: one cannot call a heretic someone who, in good faith, relies on texts that seem to speak of a G-d endowed with a form. Maimonides, for his part, holds that these texts are images.

Rabbi Yosef Albo (Spain, fifteenth century), in the Sefer HaIkarim, judges Maimonides’ list arbitrary and reduces it to three foundations:

“The general and necessary foundations of the divine religion are three: the existence of G-d, providence through reward and punishment, and the Torah from heaven.”

(Sefer HaIkarim, treatise 1, chapter 4) — העקרים הכוללים וההכרחיים לדת האלהית הם שלשה, והם מציאות השם, וההשגחה לשכר ולעונש, ותורה מן השמים

Albo also reproaches Maimonides for not counting free will, even though he himself calls it a “great principle”:

“And it is a great wonder: why did he not count it among the principles in the Commentary on the Mishna, in chapter Chelek, as he counted the thirteen principles?”

(Sefer HaIkarim, treatise 1, chapter 3) — והוא תימה גדול למה לא מנה אותו בעקרים בפירוש המשנה בפרק חלק כמו שמנה הי״ג עקרים

For Albo, the coming of the Mashiach is not a foundation (nor, in his view, specific to the Torah of Moshe). He also reports the idea that the number thirteen echoes the thirteen attributes of G-d and the thirteen rules of Torah interpretation, and he finds it very unconvincing.

Rabbi Chasdai Crescas (Spain, around 1340-1410), in his Or Hashem, proposes a different list, shorter than Maimonides’, which gives free will its full place.

Don Yitzchak Abravanel (Portugal-Italy, fifteenth-sixteenth centuries), in his Rosh Amana, defends Maimonides against certain reproaches but refuses to make the thirteen points a limiting list: every word of the Torah is true and deserves faith, and one cannot therefore choose thirteen “dogmas” among them. (Point to be reviewed by a rabbi: nuance of Abravanel’s position.)

These debates show that the thirteen principles are not an article of faith voted by a council: they are a proposal of Maimonides, which was accepted in prayer before being accepted in theory. Several historians note that, for several centuries, they had a reserved reception before establishing themselves in the Orthodox world.

From the Mishna to Prayer: Yigdal and Ani Maamin

It is the liturgy that made the principles familiar. Two texts take them up.

Yigdal is a poem of thirteen lines, one per principle. Its author is generally identified as Rabbi Daniel ben Yehuda, dayan of Rome, who is said to have completed it in 1404; others attribute it to another Italian poet, and the identity of the author remains debated. Its lines follow Maimonides’ order. Here are the first, the seventh and the last line:

“Magnified be the living G-d and praised; He exists, and no time precedes His existence.”

(Yigdal, line 1) — יִגְדַּל אֱלֹהִים חַי וְיִשְׁתַּבַּח, נִמְצָא וְאֵין עֵת אֶל מְצִיאוּתוֹ

“There has not arisen again in Israel a prophet like Moshe, who beholds His form.”

(Yigdal, line 7) — לֹא קָם בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל כְּמשֶׁה עוֹד, נָבִיא וּמַבִּיט אֶת־תְּמוּנָתוֹ

“He revives the dead in His great kindness; blessed forever be the name of His praise.”

(Yigdal, last line) — מֵתִים יְחַיֶּה אֵל בְּרֹב חַסְדּוֹ, בָּרוּךְ עֲדֵי עַד שֵׁם תְּהִלָּתוֹ

Rites differ: Ashkenazim place it at the head of the morning service; among Sephardim, it is sung at various moments; in some communities (notably Hasidic ones), it is omitted from the daily prayer for reasons of kabbalistic practice.

Ani Maamin (“I believe”) is a prose version of the list, in which each of the thirteen statements begins with “I believe with perfect faith.” Its common form postdates Maimonides, is of unknown authorship, and differs in places from his formulations. For example, for the twelfth principle:

“I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the Mashiach; and even though he may tarry, nevertheless I will wait for him each day to come.”

(Ani Maamin, 12th statement) — אֲנִי מַאֲמִין בֶּאֱמוּנָה שְׁלֵמָה בְּבִיאַת הַמָּשִֽׁיחַ וְאַף עַל פִּי שֶׁיִּתְמַהְמֵֽהַּ עִם כָּל זֶה אֲחַכֶּה לּוֹ בְּכָל יוֹם שֶׁיָּבוֹא

Many recite it at the end of the morning service; its place varies according to the rite.

A whitewashed lane in an old Andalusian town, with an arched stone gateway and cobblestones in the morning light

Faith, Practice and Orthopraxy: What Judaism Asks

One often hears that “Judaism has no dogma, only deeds.” That is too simple. The Mishna cites beliefs whose rejection excludes one from the World to Come (Sanhedrin 10:1), and the Torah asks us to “know” (Devarim 4:35: “You were shown, so that you might know that the L-rd is G-d; there is none other besides Him”). But it is fair to say that Jewish tradition places the emphasis first on practice: the greater part of the Mishneh Torah is devoted to laws, and the thirteen principles take up only a page. For the Sages, faith is proved in deeds, and conversely, deeds without faith miss their meaning.

Halakha, Aggada, Philosophy, Mysticism

To read the thirteen principles well, let us distinguish four registers.

1. Halakha. From the list, it retains what has practical consequences: defining who is a “min” or an “apikoros” (Hilkhot Teshuva 3:6-8), which has effects in law; but also the rule of the captured child (Mamrim 3:3), which tempers the severity. The text of the thirteen principles itself is not in the Shulchan Aruch. 2. Aggada and mussar. They read these principles as an education of the gaze: that G-d is “the First and the Last” invites humility, that the Torah comes from heaven invites study. 3. Philosophy. This is Maimonides’ framework: the proof of G-d’s existence, unity and incorporeality rests on reason (Guide for the Perplexed), even if, for him, human reason has its limits. 4. Kabbalah and Hasidism. They add layers of reading: G-d is spoken of there as “infinite” (Ein Sof), and the inner world of the Torah (sod) is added to its plain meaning. Yigdal is not said in certain Hasidic rites, for reasons of kabbalistic custom, not out of disagreement on substance.

Common Misconceptions

“The thirteen principles are the official creed of Judaism.” Not exactly. They are very widely accepted in the Orthodox world and inscribed in prayer, but they are the work of a master, and others, such as Albo or Crescas, proposed other lists.
“Maimonides invented these beliefs.” No: each one has a source in the Torah, the Mishna or the Talmud. His contribution is to gather and order them.
“Whoever doubts a principle is no longer Jewish.” False: being Jewish does not depend on faith (one remains Jewish even while sinning), and Maimonides himself affirms that repentance opens the World to Come to one who has denied (Hilkhot Teshuva 3:14). Doubt, inquiry and questioning are part of study.
“Yigdal is by Maimonides.” No: Yigdal is a late medieval poem (around 1400) that puts the list into verse.
“We believe because Maimonides said so.” The Sages never based faith on the authority of a single person: the people of Israel believed in Moshe because of the “maamad Har Sinai,” the revelation at Sinai, and not first because of his signs (Rambam, Hilkhot Yesodei HaTorah 8:1).

What Rav Raphaël Benizri Teaches

Rav Raphaël Benizri has not devoted a lecture to the enumeration of the thirteen principles, but he has taught at length about what faith is, which sheds light on the reading of Maimonides. In his lecture “Lech Lecha: Man’s Relationship with G-d,” he starts from the verse “he believed in the L-rd, and it was counted to him as righteousness” (Bereshit 15:6) and is surprised: until then, it was Avram who discovered G-d and taught about Him, so why does the text need to say that he believed? His answer: a faith that is deduced from truth is no longer faith, it is a logical conclusion. Faith, he says, is “the dwelling place of truth”: without it, even a truth that has been discovered would not be put into practice as soon as it contradicted our interests. He links faith to kindness (chesed) here: G-d makes Himself known through His attributes, not through a discussion about His existence.

In “Lech Lecha: Faith in Motion,” he adds that faith is never fixed: it keeps us from stopping at an idea that has already been revealed and projects us toward what that idea hides behind it. And in his introduction to Pirkei Avot, he reports that Maimonides, in his pedagogy, did not always want to cite his sources, so that an idea would not be rejected because of where it came from: everyone holds elements of revelation.

These teachings do not replace Maimonides’ text, but they show how a living tradition has always held together the principles and the way of living them: understanding, and continuing to seek. The lectures cited are available on the site: Lech Lecha: Man’s Relationship with G-d, Lech Lecha: Faith in Motion, Pirkei Avot, Part 1: Introduction.

Frequently Asked Questions About the Thirteen Principles of Faith

Who wrote the thirteen principles and when?

Maimonides (the Rambam), around 1168 at the latest, in his Commentary on the Mishna, in the introduction to chapter 10 of Sanhedrin (Perek Chelek). He wrote it in Judeo-Arabic; the Hebrew text we read is a medieval translation.

Are the thirteen principles in the Shulchan Aruch?

Not in the form of a list. The Shulchan Aruch is a code of practical laws. The principles are inscribed in prayer (Yigdal, Ani Maamin) and in Jewish thought.

Why thirteen?

Maimonides does not explain the number. Albo mentions the idea that he wanted to recall the thirteen attributes of G-d or the thirteen rules of Torah interpretation, and he finds it unconvincing (Sefer HaIkarim 1:3).

Is free will a principle of faith?

Maimonides calls it “a great principle, the pillar of the Torah and of the mitzva” (Hilkhot Teshuva 5:3), but he does not put it in the list in the introduction to Sanhedrin; Albo is surprised by this. In practice, no one disputes that it is fundamental.

Does a Jew who does not believe one of these principles remain Jewish?

Yes. Belonging to the Jewish people does not depend on faith. The question of the “share in the World to Come” is a different subject, and Maimonides himself specifies that teshuva erases everything (Hilkhot Teshuva 3:14) and that children raised in error are like captives (Hilkhot Mamrim 3:3).

What should be said about the resurrection of the dead?

It is a principle, taught in the Mishna (Sanhedrin 10:1) and the Talmud (Sanhedrin 90b), and said every day in prayer. The Sages and Maimonides discuss how to understand it; one may read chapter 8 of Hilkhot Teshuva on the World to Come.

Do other religions have a comparable creed?

Some have creeds formulated by councils. Judaism has no council fixing beliefs, and its “creeds” are proposals by masters. This takes nothing away from their authority, but it explains the freedom of discussion.

What Are Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles of Faith?