THE SHULCHAN ARUCH
Asheri's Arba Turim.--Chiddushim and Teshuboth.--Solomon ben
Adereth.--Meir of Rothenburg.--Sheshet and Duran.--Moses and
Judah Minz.--Jacob Weil, Israel Isserlein, Maharil.--David Abi
Zimra.--Joseph Karo.--Jair Bacharach.--Chacham Zevi.--Jacob
Emden.--Ezekiel Landau.
The religious literature of the Jews, so far as practical life was
concerned, culminated in the publication of the "Table Prepared"
(_Shulchan Aruch_), in 1565. The first book of its kind compiled after
the invention of printing, the Shulchan Aruch obtained a popularity
denied to all previous works designed to present a digest of Jewish
ethics and ritual observances. It in no sense superseded the "Strong
Hand" of Maimonides, but it was so much more practical in its scope, so
much clearer as a work of general reference, so much fuller of
_Minhag_, or established custom, that it speedily became the universal
hand-book of Jewish life in many of its phases. It was not accepted in
all its parts, and its blemishes were clearly perceived. The author,
Joseph Karo, was too tender to the past, and admitted some things which
had a historical justification, but which Karo himself would have been
the first to reject as principles of conduct for his own or later times.
On the whole, the book was a worthy summary of the fundamental Jewish
view, that religion is co-extensive with life, and that everything worth
doing at all ought to be done in accordance with a general principle of
obedience to the divine will. The defects of such a view are the defects
of its qualities.
The Shulchan Aruch was the outcome of centuries of scholarship. It was
original, yet it was completely based on previous works. In particular
the "Four Rows" (_Arbäa Turim_) of Jacob Asheri (1283-1340) was one of
the main sources of Karo's work. The "Four Rows," again, owed everything
to Jacob's father, Asher, the son of Yechiel, who migrated from Germany
to Toledo at the very beginning of the fourteenth century. But besides
the systematic codes of his predecessors, Karo was able to draw on a
vast mass of literature on the Talmud and on Jewish Law, accumulated in
the course of centuries.
There was, in the first place, a large collection of "Novelties"
(_Chiddushim_), or Notes on the Talmud, by various authorities. More
significant, however, were the "Responses" (_Teshuboth_), which
resembled those of the Gaonim referred to in an earlier chapter. The
Rabbinical Correspondence, in the form of Responses to Questions sent
from far and near, covered the whole field of secular and religious
knowledge. The style of these "Responses" was at first simple, terse,
and full of actuality. The most famous representatives of this form of
literature after the Gaonim were both of the thirteenth century,
Solomon, the son of Adereth, in Spain, and Meir of Rothenburg in
Germany. Solomon, the son of Adereth, of Barcelona, was a man whose
moral earnestness, mild yet firm disposition, profound erudition, and
tolerant character, won for him a supreme place in Jewish life for half
a century. Meir of Rothenburg was a poet and martyr as well as a
profound scholar. He passed many years in prison rather than yield to
the rapacious demands of the local government for a ransom, which Meir's
friends would willingly have paid. As a specimen of Meir's poetry, the
following verses are taken from a dirge composed by him in 1285, when
copies of the Pentateuch were publicly committed to the flames. The
"Law" is addressed in the second person:
Dismay hath seized upon my soul; how then
Can food be sweet to me?
When, O thou Law! I have beheld base men
Destroying thee?
Ah! sweet 'twould be unto mine eyes alway
Waters of tears to pour,
To sob and drench thy sacred robes, till they
Could hold no more.
But lo! my tears are dried, when, fast outpoured,
They down my cheeks are shed,
Scorched by the fire within, because thy Lord
Hath turned and sped.
Yea, I am desolate and sore bereft,
Lo! a forsaken one,
Like a sole beacon on a mountain left,
A tower alone.
I hear the voice of singers now no more,
Silence their song hath bound,
For broken are the strings on harps of yore,
Viols of sweet sound.
I am astonied that the day's fair light
Yet shineth brilliantly
On all things; but is ever dark as night
To me and thee.
* * * * *
Even as when thy Rock afflicted thee,
He will assuage thy woe,
And turn again the tribes' captivity,
And raise the low.
Yet shalt thou wear thy scarlet raiment choice,
And sound the timbrels high,
And glad amid the dancers shalt rejoice,
With joyful cry.
My heart shall be uplifted on the day
Thy Rock shall be thy light,
When he shall make thy gloom to pass away,
Thy darkness bright.
This combination of the poetical with the legal mind was parallelled by
other combinations in such masters of "Responses" as the Sheshet and
Duran families in Algiers in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In
these men depth of learning was associated with width of culture.
Others, such as Moses and Judah Minz, Jacob Weil, and Israel Isserlein,
whose influence was paramount in Germany in the fifteenth century, were
less cultivated, but their learning was associated with a geniality and
sense of humor that make their "Responses" very human and very
entertaining. There is the same homely, affectionate air in the
collection of _Minhagim_, or Customs, known as the _Maharil_, which
belongs to the same period. On the other hand, David Abi Zimra, Rabbi of
Cairo in the sixteenth century, was as independent as he was learned. It
was he, for instance, who abolished the old custom of dating Hebrew
documents from the Seleucid era (311 B.C.E.). And, to pass beyond the
time of Karo, the writers of "Responses" include the gifted Jair Chayim
Bacharach (seventeenth century), a critic as well as a legalist; Chacham
Zevi and Jacob Emden in Amsterdam, and Ezekiel Landau in Prague, the
former two of whom opposed the Messianic claims of Sabbatai Zevi, and
the last of whom was an antagonist to the Germanizing tendency of Moses
Mendelssohn.
Joseph Karo himself was a man of many parts. He was born in Spain in
1488, and died in Safed, the nest of mysticism, in 1575. Master of the
Talmudic writings of his predecessors from his youth, Karo devoted
thirty-two years to the preparation of an exhaustive commentary on the
"Four Rows" of Jacob Asheri. This occupied him from 1522 to 1554. Karo
was an enthusiast as well as a student, and the emotional side of the
Kabbala had much fascination for him. He believed that he had a
familiar, or _Maggid_, the personification of the Mishnah, who appeared
to him in dreams, and held communion with him. He found a congenial home
in Safed, where the mystics had their head-quarters in the sixteenth
century. Karo's companion on his journey to Safed was Solomon Alkabets,
author of the famous Sabbath hymn "Come, my Friend" (_Lecha Dodi_), with
the refrain:
Come forth, my friend, the Bride to meet,
Come, O my friend, the Sabbath greet!
The Shulchan Aruch is arranged in four parts, called fancifully, "Path
of Life" (_Orach Chayim_), "Teacher of Knowledge" (_Yoreh Deah_),
"Breastplate of Judgment" (_Choshen ha-Mishpat_), and "Stone of Help"
(_Eben ha-Ezer_). The first part is mainly occupied with the subject of
prayer, benedictions, the Sabbath, the festivals, and the observances
proper to each. The second part deals with food and its preparation,
_Shechitah_, or slaughtering of animals for food, the relations between
Jews and non-Jews, vows, respect to parents, charity, and religious
observances connected with agriculture, such as the payment of tithes,
and, finally, the rites of mourning. This section of the Shulchan Aruch
is the most miscellaneous of the four; in the other three the
association of subjects is more logical. The Eben ha-Ezer treats of the
laws of marriage and divorce from their civil and religious aspects. The
Choshen ha-Mishpat deals with legal procedure, the laws regulating
business transactions and the relations between man and man in the
conduct of worldly affairs. A great number of commentaries on Karo's
Code were written by and for the _Acharonim_ (=later scholars). It fully
deserved this attention, for on its own lines the Shulchan Aruch was a
masterly production. It brought system into the discordant opinions of
the Rabbinical authorities of the Middle Ages, and its publication in
the sixteenth century was itself a stroke of genius. Never before had
such a work been so necessary as then. The Jews were in sight of what
was to them the darkest age, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Though the Shulchan Aruch had an evil effect in stereotyping Jewish
religious thought and in preventing the rapid spread of the critical
spirit, yet it was a rallying point for the disorganized Jews, and saved
them from the disintegration which threatened them. The Shulchan Aruch
was the last great bulwark of the Rabbinical conception of life. Alike
in its form and contents it was a not unworthy close to the series of
codes which began with the Mishnah, and in which life itself was
codified.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Steinschneider.--_Jewish Literature_, p. 213 _seq._
I.H. Weiss.--On _Codes_, _J.Q.R._, I, p. 289.
ASHER BEN YECHIEL.
Graetz.--IV, p. 34 [37].
JACOB ASHERI.
Graetz.--IV, p. 88 [95].
SOLOMON BEN ADERETH.
Graetz.--III, p. 618 [639].
MEIR OF ROTHENBURG.
Graetz.--III, pp. 625, 638 [646].
JUDAH MINZ.
Graetz.--IV, p. 294 [317].
MAHARIL.
S. Schechter.--_Studies in Judaism_, p. 142 [173].
DAVID BEN ABI ZIMRA.
Graetz.--IV, p. 393 [420].
JAIR CHAYIM BACHARACH.
D. Kaufmann, _J.Q.R._, III, p. 292, etc.
JOSEPH KARO.
Graetz.--IV, p. 537 [571].
MOSES ISSERLES.
Graetz.--IV, p. 637 [677].
CHIDDUSHIM.
Graetz.--IV, p. 641 [682].