Orthodox Rabbinic Exception to the Thirteen Principles of Faith: The Dynamics of Boundary Permeability

Abstract

At its founding meeting in 1898, the Orthodox Jewish Congregational Union of America (OJCA) laid out in its charter that “we affirm our adherence to the acknowledged codes of the Rabbis and the thirteen principles of Maimonides.” In his seminal study of rabbinic attitudes towards the thirteen principles, Marc Shapiro has compellingly demonstrated that over the eight centuries since the time of Maimonides, affirmation of the principles by leading rabbinic figures has been far from monolithic. Yet, he, too, avers that the above cited quote reflects developments in Orthodox thought: “In more recent centuries there was a general agreement among traditional Jews that the Thirteen Principles were indeed the fundamentals of Judaism. Denial of even one Principle was usually enough for one to be branded as a heretic.” In this study I examine examples of Orthodox rabbinic exceptions to the thirteen principles in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Specifically, I examine these liminal cases to understand the contours and dynamics of the “acceptance” of the principles as binding within Orthodoxy. The above-cited statement from the founding charter of the OJCA implies symmetry between the affirmation of Orthodox adherence to the codes of the Rabbis and to the thirteen principles of Maimonides. Here I will demonstrate that this alleged symmetry belies a more subtle process and a more nuanced truth. Indeed, both have been accepted but in different ways, and their respective acceptance is governed by different rules. The codes of halakha are statutory in nature. The only exceptions they allow are generally those that already are incorporated into the code itself. Legal formalism is the reigning paradigm here. Any act is assessed in light of the code and determined to be either permissible or prohibited. By contrast, as we shall see, the thirteen principles are not even encapsulated in an agreed upon authoritative text. Indeed, the rules that govern their acceptance have never been articulated— neither in the rabbinic sources themselves, nor in analysis by scholars