Shulchan Aruch

Rabbi Yosef Karo, born in 1488 and a child of the Spanish expulsion, spent more than twenty years, in Adrianople and then Safed, writing the Beit Yosef, a vast commentary on the Arba'ah Turim. He then condensed its conclusions into the Shulchan Aruch ("Set Table"), first printed in Venice in 1565. It follows the Tur's four parts and usually decides by the majority of three earlier authorities: the Rif, the Rambam and the Rosh. It opens with the call to "strengthen yourself like a lion" to rise in the morning to serve the Creator.

Because Karo followed mostly Sephardi practice, Rabbi Moshe Isserles (the Rema) of Kraków added glosses recording Ashkenazi custom, known as the Mappah ("Tablecloth"), printed in 1569–1571. With commentaries such as the Taz, the Shach and the Magen Avraham, and later the Mishnah Berurah, the combined work became the standard code of Jewish practice. Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews still decide halakhah from it today.