The Great 16th-Century Rabbi Who Combined Legalism with Mysticism

Dec. 23 2022

Born in Spain in 1488, and expelled with the rest of the country’s Jews as a child, Joseph Karo spent the next four decades of his life in the Balkans where he engaged in rabbinic study before settling in Safed in the Land of Israel. Along with other scholars, Karo would transform this Galilean town into a major center of Jewish learning. There he would complete his seminal works, most importantly the Shulḥan Arukh (“Set Table”), which remains the most authoritative code of Jewish law. Besides his extensive halakhic scholarship, Karo was also immersed in the study of Kabbalah, and kept a diary of his mystical experiences, which included frequent intercourse with an angelic being known as a magid. Roni Weinstein describes this unusual text:

[A] constant theme in this diary is the fundamental contact between Karo and imminent past scholars, the fountains of talmudic scholarship. Karo is elevated to the Divine Yeshiva, where all the great names of talmudic erudition of past generations face one another in regular and continuous study, as conducted in his contemporary world. There he was hailed and heralded by an angelic voice, and his exceptional erudition and talent were recognized by past scholars, from the Mishnah through the 17th-century sages. Past and present blend into one continuum of Jewish erudition, and all the scholars are searching for Talmudic truth and rabbinical consensus.

Time and again, the diary documents how specific talmudic discussions and their ramifications—which preoccupied Karo due to his responsibilities as rabbi, judge, community leader, or public preacher—were discussed in the Divine Yeshiva. At times he was provided with an assurance that his mode of reading or interpreting certain talmudic discussion was correct, and it even filled the almighty God with satisfaction and aroused a smile.

Where did Karo get his fluid notions of the relationship between law and mysticism? Weinstein writes:

He could not have borrowed such a model from the place of origin where his family and forefathers lived for centuries—Catholic Spain, or Christian Europe in general. . . . Not surprisingly, looking at his neighbors next door in the Ottoman empire, during his early life in [the Ottoman Balkans], and later as a scholar in Safed within the Bilad a-Sham area, he could certainly observe impressive scholars of the Muslim sharia who were at the same time important and venerable Sufi masters.

In this sense, the life course of Rabbi Karo integrates smoothly with the Muslim tradition of his surroundings. Further, it corresponds with the Ottoman culture of the time, within which he prospered, and which was well-known to him and his generation. Law and mysticism are not two distinct hats worn by the same person, but two complementary occupations.

Read more at Tablet

More about: Halakhah, Jewish-Muslim Relations, Joseph Karo, Kabbalah, Ottoman Palestine

Egypt Is Trapped by the Gaza Dilemma It Helped to Create

Feb. 14 2025

Recent satellite imagery has shown a buildup of Egyptian tanks near the Israeli border, in violation of Egypt-Israel agreements going back to the 1970s. It’s possible Cairo wants to prevent Palestinians from entering the Sinai from Gaza, or perhaps it wants to send a message to the U.S. that it will take all measures necessary to keep that from happening. But there is also a chance, however small, that it could be preparing for something more dangerous. David Wurmser examines President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s predicament:

Egypt’s abysmal behavior in allowing its common border with Gaza to be used for the dangerous smuggling of weapons, money, and materiel to Hamas built the problem that exploded on October 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Once exposed, rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability.

Now that the Trump administration is threatening to remove the population of Gaza, President Sisi is reaping the consequences of a problem he and his predecessors helped to sow. That, writes Wurmser, leaves him with a dilemma:

On one hand, Egypt fears for its regime’s survival if it accepts Trump’s plan. It would position Cairo as a participant in a second disaster, or nakba. It knows from its own history; King Farouk was overthrown in 1952 in part for his failure to prevent the first nakba in 1948. Any leader who fails to stop a second nakba, let alone participates in it, risks losing legitimacy and being seen as weak. The perception of buckling on the Palestine issue also resulted in the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981. President Sisi risks being seen by his own population as too weak to stand up to Israel or the United States, as not upholding his manliness.

In a worst-case scenario, Wurmser argues, Sisi might decide that he’d rather fight a disastrous war with Israel and blow up his relationship with Washington than display that kind of weakness.

Read more at The Editors

More about: Egypt, Gaza War 2023