Creeds and Dogmas

Here is another "Ask the Rabbi" questions from Leslie:

I am reading the "JPS Guide to Jewish Traditions"--and there was a passage that stated "Jews have no creed."  I am wanting to know just what exactly that means and also, how it applies to the Reform Movement and how is it different from other streams of Judaism.

To begin answering this question, we need to define "creed".  A creed is a statement of beliefs.  A similar term is "dogma" which is an established, authoritative belief held by a group such as a religion.  Many different Christian denominations state the Apostles' Creed during their worship.  They stand up and say what they as Christians believe.  Here is the Catholic Church's version of the creed:

1. I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.2. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
3. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.
4. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
5. He descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again.
6. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
7. He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
8. I believe in the Holy Spirit,
9. the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints,
10. the forgiveness of sins,
11. the resurrection of the body,
12. and life everlasting.   

 So, we see that most Christians have a creed, but the question at hand is if Jews have a creed.  I think the answer is a little more complicated than Lesley's book's emphatic no.  The Hebrew and the ancient rabbinic writings do not have systematic lists of dogmas like the Catholic Church, but the Rabbis of the Mishnah do teach in Sanhedrin 10:1

All Jews have a share in the world to come . . . But the following do not have a share in the world to come: one who says that resurrection is not taught in the Torah, one who says that the Torah was not divinely revealed, and the epikoros . . . 

The Hebrew Bible and Rabbinic writings do have specific beliefs like monotheism and, as seen above, there are heresies, but according to Menachem Kellner, "none of the beliefs cited is singled out as enjoying special status."  That is until we get to the Rambam in the twelfth century.  In his commentary on Sanhedrin 10:1 he elucidates thirteen beliefs that he thinks every Jew has to accept to be considered part of the community.  Here is a summary of his thirteen articles of faith according to Kellner:

1.  God exists
2.  God is one
3.  God is incorporeal
4.  God is ontologically prior to the world
5.  God alone is fit to worship
6.  Prophecy occurs
7.  The prophecy of Moses is superior to that of all other prophets
8.  The Torah was revealed from heaven
9.  The Torah will never be uprooted or altered
10.  God knows the acts of human beings
11.  God rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked
12.  The Messiah will come
13.  The dead will be resurrected 

One of the greatest sages of all of Jewish history, the Rambam, believes that Judaism has a creed.  Most Jewish scholars after the Rambam did not agree with him.  Some disagreed with the number of articles of faith, and some did not think that they were necessary.  Even though the his thirteen have never become an official creed, they have found their way into traditional prayerbooks in two poetic forms: the Ani Ma'amin (here is a great pop rendition) and Yigdal (I like this video.  It is much more traditional.  Here are a bunch of different musical renditions.)  So, Judaism doesn't really have creeds and dogmas, but it we have poems that are creed-like; it's hard to excise the Rambam from the siddur.

A lot of people like to say that Judaism is more a religion of action than of belief (hence the statement from the JPS book in the original question from Leslie).  These people say that it more important that we "do Jewish" than "think Jewish".  They might even say that "deed leads to creed."  If you live the mitzvot, belief will come.  The founders of our Reform Movement in the nineteenth century had a slightly different take on that.  They wanted to distill Judaism to what they felt was its essence.  Therefore they downplayed ritual and said that the essence of Judaism was ethical monotheism.  Ethical monotheism is the belief in the One God who demands moral behavior.  The classical Reformers therefore held that Judaism's "moral laws" were eternal and its "ritual laws" were open to change.  Rituals had to instill morals.  Since belief in the God of morals was the most important thing, many Reform Jews turned the first line of the Shema (Deut. 6:4) into a creedal liturgical moment.  They often called it "the watchword of our faith."  In American Reform temples, worshipers would go against traditional Jewish practice and stand for "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One.  Praised be His name whose glorious kingdom is forever and ever" like Christians did in church when reciting their creed.

While most Reform Jews today still stand for the first line of the Shema, I don't think that Reform Judaism still thinks of Judaism in creedal terms.  To quote Kellner again:

Today, for all intents and purposes, the question of dogma qua dogma in Judaism is a dead issue.  Orthodox, Conservative, and Reconstructionist Judaism all emphasize, each in its own way, practice over dogma, and even Reform Judaism, despite its repeated attempts to dine itself in quasi-dogmatic terms, basically appears to operate in the same framework.

So, I believe that answers Leslie's question.