The Table and the Tablecloth

Far to the north, in Kraków, a young rabbi named Moshe Isserles — the Rema — had set himself a great task: a commentary on the Tur that would gather all the sources and decide the law. He was deep into the work when news reached him that a book had appeared doing exactly that: the Beit Yosef of Rabbi Yosef Karo of Tzfat.

He might have abandoned his work, or set himself against the newcomer. He did neither. He read the Beit Yosef and saw both its greatness and what it lacked: it followed mainly the Sephardi authorities, and the customs and rulings of the sages of Germany and Poland were often missing. So he reshaped his own book, Darkei Moshe, to supplement Karo’s.

When the Shulchan Aruch appeared, the Rema did the same again. Wherever Ashkenazi practice differed, he added a short gloss. He called his notes HaMapah — “the Tablecloth” — to be spread over the “Set Table.” Printed together, the two works became one: a single code for the whole Jewish people, in which Sephardim follow Maran and Ashkenazim follow the Rema where he disagrees, and everyone studies the same page.

It is hard to imagine a more generous answer from one great scholar to another. The two never met. Their books have lain side by side on every rabbi’s table for over four hundred years.