In one of the most condensed revelations in his mystical diary Megid Meisharim, R. Karo was addressed and promised thus:

This is a highly charged revelation, encompassing the major themes of R. Karo's intellectual and public activities: leadership over the entire Eastern Diaspora (Arabistan), the composition of Beit Yosef and Shulchan ‘Arukh, constant expectations of martyrdom, daily ecstatic contact with the divine figure, and, finally, all these as a reward for his commitment to re-establishment of Semikhah.

This last theme provoked a lively and highly charged polemic in late sixteenth-century Safed. The competing parties were the local rabbis, headed by the dominant and prestigious R. Jacob Beirav, versus a Jerusalem rabbi, R. Levi ben-Haviv. Accordingly, this polemic has hitherto been discussed in the literature as an internal affair between scholars and experts of Talmudic law. While this dimension is fundamental to illuminate some aspects of the affair, it disregards the Ottoman setting and the urgent considerations that motivated both parties as they shaped Jewish life under Ottoman rule. The non-Jewish context relates further to the grand vision of R. Karo establishing a Jewish legal guild.