Obj. ID: 35326
Jewish printed books  Shulchan Aruch, Amsterdam, 1698

The following description was prepared by William Gross:

Shulchan Aruch - Amsterdam, 1698 (Nachat) Shulchan Aruch, with Be'er HaGolah, complete set - Orach Chaim, Yoreh Deah, Even HaEzer and Choshen Mishpat. Amsterdam: Immanuel Athias, 1697-1699. Four volumes.
The first edition of the Shluchan Aruch to be printed with references to its sources and glosses, entitled Be’er ha-Golah. Four volumes. Vol. 1: [24], 266, [2] leaves. Vol 2: [1], 302, [1] leaves. Vol. 3: [1], 178, 178-180, [1] leaves. Vol. 4: [1], 432, [1] leaves. 15.5 cm.
The Shulchan Aruch (Hebrew: שֻׁלחָן עָרוּך‎, literally: "Set Table") by R. Yosef Karo is the most widely-consulted and authoritative code of Jewish law. The work was authored in Safed, Israel in 1563 and published in Venice two years later. Together with its commentaries, it is the most widely accepted compilation of Jewish law ever written.
While the halakhic rulings of the Shulchan Aruch generally follow Sephardic law and customs, the gloss of Moses Isserles (the Rema) provides the Ashkenazic customs where they differ from those of the Sepharadim.. These glosses are widely referred to as the mappah (literally: "The Tablecloth") to the Shulchan Aruch's "Set Table". Almost all published editions of the Shulchan Aruch include this gloss, and the term "Shulchan Aruch" has come to denote both Karo's work as well as Isserles', with Karo usually referred to as "the mechaber" ("author") and Isserles as "the Rema".
The Shulchan Aruch (and its forerunner, the Beit Yosef) follow the same structure as Arba'ah Turim by Rabbi Jacob ben Asher. These books were written from the standpoint of Sephardi Minhag, other works entitled Shulchan Aruch or Kitzur Shulcan Aruch cited below are written from the standpoint of Ashkenazi Minhag. There are four sections, each subdivided into many chapters and paragraphs.
1. Orach Chayim - laws of prayer and synagogue, Sabbath, holidays;2. Yoreh De'ah - laws of kashrut; religious conversion; Mourning; Laws pertaining to Israel; Laws of family purity 3. Even Ha'ezer - laws of marriage, divorce and related issues; 4. Choshen Mishpat - laws of finance, financial responsibility, damages (personal and financial), and the rules of the Bet Din, as well as the laws of witnesses

Joseph ben Ephraim Karo (Yosef Caro, 1488 – March 24, 1575), was born in Toledo, Spain in 1488. In 1492, at age the age of four, he was forced to flee Spain with his family and the rest of Spanish Jewry as a result of the Alhambra Decree, and subsequently settled in Portugal. After the expulsion of the Jews from Portugal in 1497, the Ottomans invited the Jews to settle within the Ottoman Empire. Karo went with his parents to Nikopol, Bulgaria, then a city in the Ottoman Empire, and spent the rest of his life in the Ottoman Empire. In Nikopol, he received his first instruction from his father, who was himself an eminent Talmudist. He married, first, Isaac Saba's daughter, and, after her death, the daughter of Hayyim Albalag, both of these men being well-known Talmudists. After the death of his second wife he married the daughter of Zechariah Sechsel (or perhaps Sachsel), a learned and wealthy Talmudist.
Already as a young man, R. Karo gained a reputation as a brilliant Torah scholar. He began by writing an explanation on the Rambam's Mishneh Torah, which he entitled the Kesef Mishnah. Here he cited and explained Rambam's sources.
Between 1520 and 1522 Karo settled at Edirne. He later settled in the city of Safed, c.1535, having en route spent several years in Salonica (1533) and Istanbul.
R. Moses ben Naphtali Hirsch Rivkes, author of the Be'er ha-Golah, came from a family of soferim and worked as a corrector for the Lublin press before fleeing war and the Cossacks. He eventually reached Amsterdam where he was employed as a corrector on a new edition of the Shulchan Aruch. He was persuaded by its sponsors to write the Be’er ha-Golah to accompany it. The Be’er ha-Golah is now regularly printed with the Shulchan Aruch.
Hoshen Mishpat, Part IV of the Shulhan Arukh of R. Joseph Caro (1488–1575), with the additions of R. Moses Isserles (Rema) also referred to as ha-Mapah (tablecloth) it contains explanations, supplements, additions, and includes the customs of the Ashkenazi scholars in the Shulhan Arukh ignored by R. Joseph Caro. At times Rema decided against the view of the Shulhan Arukh, ruling in conformity with R. Asher b. Jehiel and his son R. Jacob, rather than with R. Isaac Alfasi and R. Maimonides as R. does Caro. By spreading his Mappah ("tablecloth"), so to speak, over the Shulhan Arukh ("Prepared Table") - which had codified Sephardi practice - he in fact made that work acceptable to Ashkenazim as well as Sephardim.. The Hoshen Mishpat contains 427 chapters on laws of finance, financial responsibility, damages (personal and financial), and the rules of the Bet Din, as well as the laws of witnesses.
With the Be'er ha-Golah commentary by R. Moses b. Naphtali Hirsch Rivkes (d. c. 1671/72), Lithuanian talmudist. It is not known when Rivkes went to Vilna, but he was one of those expelled from Vilna in 1655 (together with R. Shabbetai b. Meir ha-Kohen, R. Ephraim Cohen, and R. Aaron Samuel Koidonover ) during the war between Poland and Russia. He reached the Prussian border but was prevented from proceeding further because of the Swedish army which was invading Russia. He then sailed for Amsterdam, where he was well received by the Sephardi community. Although most of the refugees were sent to Frankfurt, Rivkes, through the influence of R. Saul Levi Morteira and R. Isaac Aboab , remained in Amsterdam. He later returned to Vilna, where he died.
Rivkes' fame rests upon his Be'er ha-Golah. At the request of Ephraim Bueno, "the distinguished doctor," and Jacob Castello, he corrected the edition of the Shulḥan Arukh printed in Amsterdam, adding to it the sources and clarifying the reasons for conflicting opinions. The work (first published in the Amsterdam (1661–66) edition of the Shulḥan Arukh) became an integral part of the Shulḥan Arukh, appearing in all editions. Rivkes also wrote additions to the Shulḥan Arukh and a commentary on the Mishnah, which were never published. In the sphere of Jew-gentile relations, Rivkes favored tolerance and mutual respect, condemning dishonesty toward non-Jews in commercial dealings and stressing the duty of Jews to respect Jews and gentiles alike, since Christians shared with Jews certain religious beliefs based upon the Bible. He was renowned for his personal piety and was called he-Ḥasid ("the pious"), an unusual appellation for that time. In his ethical testament he refers to his sons, Pethahiah, Joseph, and Judah, who died in his lifetime, and to his sister's son, David Lida, rabbi of Amsterdam. Rivkes was an ancestor of Elijah Gaon of Vilna, who was supported by a legacy established by him.

Copperplate frontispiece for each of the four volumes, showing four cherubim supporting a crowned open book inscribed "Shulchan Aruch" and banners bearing the names of the book’s four divisions (Turim). Athias printer’s device with a squirrel.

The book's printer, Joseph Athias (c.1635 – 1700) was born in Spain, and via Portugal and Germany, eventually reached Amsterdam. His father, Jorge Mendez de Castro, had been burned alive at an auto-de-fé in Cordova in 1665. At the age of 23, in 1658 Athias opened a Hebrew print-shop (in the same year as Uri Phoebus establish his press) which would be active into the 18th C. A proficient businessman, Athias was able to establish commercial ties with bookmen in Holland and elsewhere. He was the first Jewish printer to be accepted, in 1661, as a member of the Amsterdam Bookprinters Guild.
Among the markets addressed by Joseph Athias, in contrast to other Hebrew printers of that time, was the printing of books for the non-Jewish market, a market with enhanced business prospects. Relying on the stereotype process, in which pages are composed and fixed in an iron frame which can be stored for future use, he was able to print 250 Bibles in four hours. The stereotype method was not employed for Athias’ Hebrew books as that market was insufficient to justify the expense of the process. His popular quarto Hebrew Bible, for example, has a print-run of only 3,000 copies (in contrast to the more than a million copies of an English Bible he claimed to have printed for the English and Scottish market).
Other works published by Athias include: Pentateuch with Megillot and Hafṭarot (1665); Psalms, with Dutch translation and proof-read by J. Leusden (1666-67); and a second edition of his 1659 Bible. More carefully prepared than the first, and with still more beautiful type and decorations, this 1667 edition earned Athias a gold medal and chain worth 600 Dutch florins from the States General of the Netherlands. A cut of the medal appears on the book’s title page.
Athias' business career was marred by his controversy with the printer Uri Phoebus over their almost simultaneous printing of Yiddish translations of the Bible. Phoebus’ edition, a translation by Jekuthiel ben Isaac Blitz, had taken him three years to complete, and proved to be a severe financial drain. Prior to printing it, however, he had obtained from the Polish Council of the Four Lands the privilege that for ten years all reprints were to be prohibited and laid under ban. The rabbis of the Portuguese and German congregations of Amsterdam and elsewhere confirmed this privilege. In addition, through the influence his two Christian partners, the alderman Wilhelm Blau and the jurist Laurens Ball, Phoebus had also obtained from John III. Sobieski of Poland a further privilege that this Yiddish translation was to have copyright in Poland for twenty years. The work was not even completed, however, when one of his compositors, Josel (Joseph) Witzenhausen, himself made a Yiddish translation, for which he secured Joseph Athias as printer and publisher. Through his wealth, Athias possessed certain advantages over his rival, and was also able to obtain privileges for his translation from Holland and Zealand, and even succeeded, through a Jewish agent of the Polish crown in Holland, in gaining still more favorable protection from the Council of the Four Lands. Although Witzenhausen was warned not to compete with Phoebus and Blitz, both he and Athias ignored the injunction, and began to print as early as December 5, 1678. Phoebus’ edition appeared at Amsterdam in 1678; that of Athias, in its complete form, in 1679.
The printers’ dispute embroiled both men in litigation, and, the market being flooded with two translations, brought both Athias and Phoebus to financial ruin. Athias’ press was forced into temporary bankruptcy, and in 1695 both he and his son Immanuel had to go into hiding. Nevertheless, they were able to settle their accounts, resume printing, and prosper again.
Second edition of commentary. [1], 432, [2] ff., octavo