Once the Beit Yosef was complete, Karo distilled its decisions into a short, clear code without the long discussions and sources — a work for daily use, which he called Shulchan Aruch, “the Set Table.” He finished it in 1555 in the village of Biriya, near Tzfat, where he had gone during an outbreak of plague. It was first printed in Venice in 1565.
Four parts
- Orach Chaim — daily life, prayer, Shabbat and the festivals.
- Yoreh De’ah — kashrut, mourning, charity, Torah study, and other laws requiring rabbinic decision.
- Even HaEzer — marriage and divorce.
- Choshen Mishpat — civil and monetary law, courts and testimony.
From a summary to the code of all Israel
Karo intended the work as a guide; the Jewish world made it the law. At first it met resistance — from those who feared that rulings without sources would replace learning, and from Ashkenazi sages, who noted that it followed mainly the Sephardi authorities. The greatest of them, Rabbi Moshe Isserles of Kraków, answered not by rejecting it but by completing it: his glosses, HaMapah (“the Tablecloth”), recorded Ashkenazi practice wherever it differed. Printed together, the two became the shared code of the whole Jewish people. Around them grew the commentaries studied to this day — the Shach, the Taz, the Magen Avraham, the Mishnah Berurah, the Kaf HaChaim and many more.
Its influence
Almost five centuries later, the Shulchan Aruch remains the foundation of halachic practice in every community. For Sephardi Jews, Karo’s rulings are accepted as binding — he is Maran, “our master.”
