By the seventeenth century, the fame of R. Joseph Karo was already well-established. When people referred to his fundamental double codes of law, and to his responsa, they did not refer to him in the customary manner in the rabbinical milieu, as Rabbi or Chakham (literally “sage,” a common title for rabbis in the Sephardi tradition). Karo bore the title Maran (“our Master” in Aramaic), sometimes without even adding his surname “Karo.”

In the early modern world, and in the geographical location where R. Karo lived, on the seam between Catholic Europe, the Ottoman Empire, and the Jewish Mediterranean Diaspora, titles mattered a lot. They distinguished their bearer from other members of his collective (such as a professional guild); they endowed a specific position within a hierarchy; they marked the boundaries between various ethnic and religious collectivities; and they delineated a professional identity. They shaped self-perceptions and inspired honor and respect from others. This was equally true regarding the Islamic and Catholic majority societies and the Jewish minority living among them. Jewish community leaders bore certain titles and insisted on a suitable response from others. The same was true in relation to the rabbinical milieu in regard to honorary and professional titles, continuing a centuries-long tradition. However, “Maran” was a unique title of Joseph Karo, related to no other rabbinical, Talmudic, or post-Talmudic persona. The circumstances leading to its use and its semantic and cultural affiliations are the main themes of this chapter.

Jewish Titles

As the rabbinical tradition of learning was progressively institutionalized in schools (the Yeshiva or Beit Midrash) during late antiquity in the Holy Land, and further east in Babylonia under Sassanian and later Islamic rule, Jewish tradition witnessed an impressive growth of various titles.