Who Wrote Judaism’s Canonical Creed?

It’s a longstanding truism that Judaism, in contrast to other monotheistic faiths, especially Christianity, is rich in rules of religious conduct but devoid of official articles of belief—that is, of dogma. In the popular phrase, it is a religion of deed, not creed. But is that true, or wholly true? Or is it a kind of dogma itself: the dogma, as some wags have put it, of dogmalessness?

One powerful answer is to be found in most traditional Jewish prayer books. Open one, and you’ll likely find within it what rabbinic Judaism has long sanctioned as the Jewish creed or confession of faith: the Ani Ma’amin, thirteen affirmations of belief each of which begins with the statement, ani ma’amin b’emunah sh’leymah—“I believe with perfect faith. . . . ” (In denominational terms, the creed is found in most Orthodox prayer books, but is absent from the prayer books of the Conservative and Reform movements.)

The Ani Ma’amin often appears under the title “Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles of Faith.” It is indeed based on the writings of Moses Maimonides, the towering 12th-century rabbi and philosopher; but it was not actually written by him. In fact, to this day we have no idea who first wrote the prayer-book version ascribed to Maimonides.