Creator Bio

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.

Entries in the Posen Library by This Creator

Primary Source

Shulḥan ‘arukh (Set Table)

Public Access
Image
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…

Primary Source

Magid mesharim (Speaker of Truth): Lessons from the Magid

Public Access
Text
Is your excessive talk beneficial to you? [ . . . ] And do you consider it proper that you peruse the [weekly Pentateuchal] portion twice in Hebrew and…

Primary Source

Avkat rokhel (Powder of the Merchant)

Public Access
Text
Hear, ye mountains, the controversy of the Lord, and ye strong foundations of the earth [see Micah 6:2] the lament of my beloved for his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard in a very fruitful hill…

Primary Source

Shulḥan ‘arukh (Set Table): Laws of the Synagogue

Public Access
Text
One may not behave frivolously in synagogues and study houses, including exhibiting such behaviors as laughter, teasing, and idle conversation. One may not eat or drink in them, nor may one…

Primary Source

Magid mesharim (Speaker of Truth): On Tikun Leyl Shavuot

Public Access
Text
The words of the perfect scholar, the divine kabbalist, R. Solomon ha-Levi Alkabetz (may the memory of the righteous be for the life of the World-to-Come): Know that the pious one and myself, his…

Primary Source

Bet Yosef (The House of Joseph): On Marriage Contracts

Public Access
Text
Question: Reuven has a single daughter, soft and delicate, whom he married to Ḥanokh ben Judah with a dowry of a thousand sultanish. The bride is twelve years old, and in her father’s home she was…

Primary Source

Bet Yosef (The House of Joseph): Introduction

Public Access
Text
Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who created His world for the purpose of mankind, and, from all the different sorts of men, chose for Himself a nation as a special treasure—namely…

Primary Source

Shulḥan ‘arukh (Set Table): Introduction

Public Access
Text
These are the words of the insignificant man, Joseph Karo, son of the great R. Ephraim, son of the great R. Joseph Karo, may he be remembered for the life of the world to come. I shall…