#198: Rabbi Yosef Karo (1488-1575): The high-stakes story behind the Shulchan Aruch

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This 2-part series discovers the dramatic life of Rabbi Yosef Karo, which was lived far beyond the pages of his famous legal code, the Shulchan Aruch.

Born into the upheaval of the 1492 Spanish Expulsion, he fled across borders from Lisbon to Cairo to Greece and eventually to Eretz Yisrael and was instructed by a spiritual maggid. But the 16th century of mass migrations threatened to fracture Jewish tradition into "countless Torahs". So he embarked on a monumental mission to write a master legal framework and unite the diaspora, which fundamentally reshaped our lives.

His story included an attempt to hasten the Messianic era, that led to him being banned from the main synagogue of Tzfas and a son born to him in his old age.

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro & dedication

02:20 Who was Rabbi Yosef Karo?

05:57 Tzfas: The rise of a holy city

16:46 Karo’s authority in Tzfas

21:08 What was Smicha and why revive it?

26:25 The 1538 Smicha controversy

35:44 Challenges to reviving Smicha