Obj. ID: 37628  Shulchan Aruch, Venice, 1798

This text was prepared by William Gross:

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.