What Does Judaism Teach About God?

Summary. Judaism affirms one God, indivisible, without form, the Creator of the universe. This is the unambiguous teaching of the Shema, the first principle of Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles of Faith, and the foundation of every denomination. Beyond this, the tradition is remarkably various: Maimonides’ rationalist God of negative attributes, the Kabbalists’ infinite Ein Sof emanating through the ten Sefirot, the Hasidic God dwelling in every spark of creation, the Mussar God of intimate ethical relationship. The New Jew is invited into the conversation, not assigned a position.

The central declaration of Jewish faith is the Shema (Devarim 6:4): Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad — “Hear, O Israel: Hashem is our God, Hashem is One.” The Hebrew echad carries the weight of singularity, unity, and indivisibility. The Shema is recited twice daily by traditional Jews and is the first verse a Jewish child learns; it is also, by tradition, the last word on a Jew’s lips at death.

Maimonides (Rambam, 1138–1204), the towering rationalist of the medieval period, codified the Jewish doctrine of God in the first five of his Thirteen Principles of Faith (Commentary on Mishnah Sanhedrin, Chapter 10): God exists, is one, is incorporeal, is eternal, and is the only being worthy of worship. The Rambam’s God is known principally through what cannot be said — the via negativa, the way of negation (Guide for the Perplexed I:50–60). To say God is “powerful” is to import a human attribute; we can more accurately say that God is not weak.

The Kabbalistic tradition, developed in twelfth-century Provence and Spain and brought to its full systematic form by Rabbi Isaac Luria (the Arizal, 1534–1572) in sixteenth-century Safed, speaks of God in two registers. There is the Ein Sof — the “without end,” the unknowable infinite — and the ten Sefirot, the divine attributes through which the Ein Sof becomes knowable and through which the world is created and sustained. The Sefirot are not separate gods; they are the modes through which the One acts.

Hasidism, founded by the Baal Shem Tov (c. 1698–1760), brought this Kabbalistic God into the lived practice of every Jew. The Baal Shem Tov taught that the divine spark dwells in every person, in every blade of grass, in every act of daily life; the work of the Jew is to elevate the sparks back to their Source through joyful worship, ethical conduct, and mindful presence.

Modern Jewish thinkers have continued the conversation. Martin Buber (1878–1965) framed the encounter with God as the I-Thou relation: God is the eternal Thou whom we meet in genuine encounter with another person. Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) wrote of God in search of man, of the radical amazement that is the proper religious posture, of divine pathos. Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik (1903–1993) framed the Jew as simultaneously Adam I (the dignified master of nature) and Adam II (the humble covenantal partner with God).

A New Jew need not pick a school. The conversation itself is the inheritance.

Where Denominations Diverge

Orthodox affirms Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles as foundational. Conservative Judaism, while affirming a personal God, is hospitable to a wider range of theological positions including process theology and divine limitation. Reform Judaism has historically been theologically pluralistic, with classical Reform’s rationalist deism, current Reform’s renewed openness to Kabbalah and Hasidism, and a Reform Judaism that finds room for naturalist and humanist Jews. Reconstructionist Judaism, following Mordecai Kaplan, often speaks of God as the “power that makes for salvation,” a non-supernatural reading. Renewal Judaism is deeply Hasidic and Kabbalistic in flavor, with strong feminist and ecological dimensions.

Sources

Torah: Devarim 6:4 (the Shema).

Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Yesodei HaTorah 1–4.

Rambam, Moreh Nevuchim (Guide for the Perplexed) I:50–60.

Rambam, Commentary on Mishnah Sanhedrin 10 — Thirteen Principles.

Rabbi Isaac Luria, Etz Chaim (via Rabbi Chaim Vital).

Martin Buber, I and Thou (1923).

Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man (1955).

Further Reading

Rifat Sonsino and Daniel B. Syme, Finding God: Selected Responses.

Arthur Green, Ehyeh: A Kabbalah for Tomorrow.

Joseph Telushkin, Jewish Literacy — for a chapter-length introduction.