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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 December 2022
In one of the most condensed revelations in his mystical diary Megid Meisharim, R. Karo was addressed and promised thus:
It is I, the Mishnah, speaking through [or: in] your mouth, the mother castigating her sons [or: children], the one embracing you. And you shall often adhere to me, I shall return to you and you shall return to me. I shall raise you to become master and leader [sar ve-nagid] over the entire Jewish diaspora in Arabistan. Since you have profoundly devoted yourself to reinstating Semikhah, you shall be honored to be ordained by all the Sages of the Holy Land, and by the Sages abroad [i.e. beyond the Holy Land]. Through you, I [the Mishnah, i.e. the mystical speaking figure] would re-establish the glory of Semikhah, and I would benefit you by enabling you to finish your major corpus [both codification books: Beit Yosef and Shulchan ‘Arukh]. And later you would burn on the stake for my name's sanctity and would earn [the honor] of rising from the dead, and you shall become one of those of whom it is said that they were awarded with a place in heaven [while alive—R.W]. And so, peace be upon you.
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.
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