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BASIC PRINCIPLES BASIC P R I N C I P L E S עקרים עסרים •IT• (Book of Roots), by Rabbi Joseph Albo of fifteenth-century Spain, belongs to the last of the philosophical classics of medieval Judaism. I t is counted among the famous works of Rav Saadyah Gaon (Emunoth v'Deoth), Bahya ibn Pakuda (Hovoth ha-Levavoth), Yehudah Halevi (Kuzari), Abraham ibn Daud (Emunah Ramah), Moses Maimonides (Moreh Nevukhim), Ralbag (Milhamoth ha-Shem), and Hasdai Crescas (Or Adonai). The Sefer ha-Ikkarim, concerned mainly with Jewish dogma, is a vindication of Judaism particularly directed against the onslaughts of those who used every method of violence and persuasion to convert the Spanish Jews. Hasdai Crescas, who was the teacher of Albo, reduced the thirteen principles of faith, formulated by Maimonides, to six; Albo, however, reduced them to three basic dogmas: Existence of God, Divine Revelation, and Retribution. To deny these three is heresy, according to Albo, while doubting other beliefs, which he classifies as derivatives (anafim), is not heretical. The derivative beliefs include the creation of the world out of nothing (ex nihilo); the supreme rank of Moses' prophecy; the resurrection of the dead; the Messiah. Albo maintains that the three basic dogmas can never be changed, because they are implied in the first two commandments spoken by God himself. The rest of the commands may be changed as a temporary measure. Rabbi Joseph Albo (1380-1444) systematized the fundamentals of the Jewish religion and influenced the study of Jewish dogmatism of the later generations. The necessity to establish religious dogmas resuited primarily from challenges to Judaism from the outside. Against the attitude of those of formulated Jewish dogmas, Rabbi Isaac Abravanel (1437-1508), statesman and religious philosopher, maintained that there was no need for making distinctions between sets of Jewish doctrines, declaring that " i t is improper to lay down basic principles, since we should believe everything in the Torah." According to Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888), leader of Jewish orthodoxy, Judaism embraces six hundred and thirteen precepts, but knows no dogmas (Nineteen Letters). Samuel David Luzzatto (1800-1865), many-sided Italian-Jewish scholar, wrote: "The principal dogma of Judaism is the belief in the divine origin of the Torah (Torah min ha-shamayim) and the acceptance of the yoke of the mitzvoth" (Penini Shadal). SEFER H A - I K K A R I M 474