Shulḥan ‘arukh (Set Table)

Joseph Karo

Moses Isserles

1721/23

Printed page with Hebrew text surrounded by columns, foliage, and cherubs. — Joseph Karo’s *Shulḥan ‘arukh* (*Set Table*)—printed together with the additions of Moses Isserles’s Mapah (Tablecloth) and first published in 1565—was a codification of Jewish law that was easy to use as a basis for Jewish observance. It became accepted throughout the diaspora as the basis for traditional halakhic decision-making and is still considered an authoritative text today. This title page is from a version from Mantua that was published in many editions. One early edition included a title page with portraits of great rabbis. This did not meet with the approval of the rabbis of Mantua and that title page did not appear in subsequent editions of the work.

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Shulchan Aruch with Likutei Rabbi Gur Aryeh Ha-Levi.Mantova [1721–1723]. Printed by Yitzhak Ya're Ve-Ya'akov Haver Tov. Towson University Albert S. Cook Library Special Collections & University Archives.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 5.

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Joseph Karo

1488–1575

Joseph Karo was an influential mystic best known for his authoritative codification of modern halakhic practice. Karo was a central member of kabbalist circles in sixteenth-century Safed, where he also headed a yeshiva. Born in the Iberian Peninsula shortly before the expulsions of Jews from Spain and Portugal, Karo was raised in Ottoman Turkey and departed for Safed in 1536. His Shulḥan ‘arukh (Set Table)—printed together with Moses Isserles’s Mapah (Tablecloth)—still forms the basis of traditional halakhic decision-making today. It is a digest of Karo’s own four-volume Bet Yosef, which adopts the organization of Jewish law into the categories established by Jacob ben Asher (1270–1343) in his Arba‘ah turim (Four Rows). In Magid mesharim (Speaker of Truth), Karo records the instructions given to him by a supernatural guide, called a magid.

Moses Isserles

1520–1572

Also known as the Rema, Moses Isserles was the head of the yeshiva in Kraków. He studied with his father and with the most prominent authority of his time, Shalom Shakhnah of Lublin. Isserles was acknowledged as a rabbinic authority at a young age and appointed to the rabbinic court, but was also famous for his disputes with some of his contemporaries. Isserles’s major work is his legal code, Darkhe Moshe (The Ways of Moses) which appeared in both complete and abridged versions (1692, 1760), but he is best known for his glosses on Joseph Karo’s Shulḥan ‘arukh (Set Table). Isserles also wrote responsa and biblical commentary.

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