ר׳ יוסף קארו

ר׳ יוסף קארו (1488–1575), known as מרן, הבית יוסף and המחבר, was the pre-eminent Sephardi halakhic codifier of the sixteenth century. Traditionally born in Toledo, he was carried into exile after the Iberian expulsions and spent roughly four decades in the Ottoman Balkans, principally Constantinople, Adrianople, Nikopol and Salonica. He first learned from his father ר׳ אפרים קארו and, after his father’s death, from his uncle ר׳ יצחק קארו. He began בית יוסף, his vast source-based commentary on ארבעה טורים, during his Ottoman years. Settling in Safed about 1536, he joined its rabbinical court and received renewed semikhah from ר׳ יעקב בירב. He later headed the court and academy, alongside leading scholars including ר׳ משה מטראני. בית יוסף established his method by weighing the major earlier authorities; שולחן ערוך distilled its conclusions into a practical code. With the glosses of ר׳ משה איסרליש, it became the central framework of later Jewish law. His mystical diary מגיד מישרים also reveals the ascetic and kabbalistic dimensions of his religious life. He died in Safed in 1575.