The big idea: The guide opens with a claim worth memorising: few formal statements of belief, because the emphasis of Judaism is on obedience to the Torah rather than subscribing to a set of beliefs — yet key beliefs are important.
Both halves. Quoting only the first makes Judaism look indifferent to doctrine, which it is not.
The key beliefs the guide lists
- The oneness of God, as expressed in the Shema
- The holiness of God, and the choosing of the children of Israel to be a holy people, keeping the covenant by obeying the Torah obligations
- The love of God and the human response — and that God works in the history of his covenant people
- The justice of God as King and Creator
- And a challenge rather than a belief: the death of six million Jews in the Holocaust
| Key belief | Where a Jew meets it |
|---|---|
| The oneness of God | The Shema, recited daily, worn in tefillin, fixed in the mezuzah |
| The holiness of God, and Israel chosen as a holy people | Kashrut and the ritual mitzvot — the guide says they express being set apart |
| The love of God and the human response | Commanded at Deuteronomy 6: 4, in the Shema's own next line |
| God working in the history of his people | The festivals, which recreate that history — "God brought us out of Egypt" |
| The justice of God as King and Creator | The High Holy Days, and the prayers of penitence |
| Maimonides' 13 principles | Sung as the Yigdal in the synagogue service |
Where the doctrines came from: The guide's answer is short: the Hebrew Bible (the written Torah) and the oral Torah.
It then adds a modern development — Reform Judaism emerged because of cultural influences in 19th-century Germany, where the Jewish enlightenment led some to reject belief in God's giving the entire Torah to Moses on Sinai.
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Where it is found: The guide gives the references: Deuteronomy 6: 4–9; 11: 13–21; Numbers 15: 37–41.
It is in the siddur, it is in the mezuzah on the doorpost and in the tefillin worn for prayer — the same words, in three places, doing three jobs.
The Shema, clause by clause. It begins as a command and ends as an instruction about a doorframe.
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The Maimonides detail: The guide names the 13 principles of faith as expressed by Maimonides, and adds that they are in the Yigdal in the synagogue service.
So Judaism does have a creed of a kind — sung. Mentioning that a tradition with "few formal statements of belief" nonetheless sings thirteen of them weekly shows the nuance an examiner is looking for.
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Cosmogony and cosmology
- Jews hold God is the sole creator
- God gives human beings free will
- And requires their cooperation, struggling between good and bad inclinations
- The goal: a world of peace and justice for all
Eschatology
- Olam Ha-Ba — a fundamentally new age
- Coming after the Messianic Age, of peace and justice for humankind
- Orthodox Jews believe an individual Mashiach, a human being anointed by God, will usher in the Messianic Age
- Judaism emphasizes observance in this life rather than elaborating the hereafter
Tikkun olam: The reparation of the universe.
It is a key concept and it sits under cosmology rather than ethics for a reason: on Jewish teaching the world is unfinished and human cooperation is part of how it is completed. Human action has cosmic work to do.
The Holocaust: how this course treats it: The guide lists it under statements of belief as a challenge — "challenges to this faith posed by the death of six million Jews in the Holocaust".
So it belongs in an answer as a question Jewish thinkers put to their own tradition: how the justice of God, the covenant and the election of a holy people are to be held after it.
Jewish responses differ profoundly, and this course does not adjudicate between them. Report the question, report that the responses differ, and supply no resolution of your own.
How this is tested. Theme 3 asks what statements of belief a religion has and what doctrines are central. For Judaism the honest answer starts by qualifying the question.
IB-style questionExamine[15 marks]
Examine the importance of statements of belief in Judaism.
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