Bais Yosef

Rabbi Yosef Caro started working on the Bais Yosef while living in Adrianople, when he was around 30 years old. When Rabbi Yosef Karo reached Tzfat he worked with his teacher Rabbi Ya’akov Beirav to complete the book. In all the Beit Yosef took 20 years to write and another 12 to edit and format.  It was created at a very needed time when different Jewish communities were being uprooted and new communities were being formed and had no central Halachic work to guide them. Work done for the Beit Yosef served as the eventual foundation for the creation of the Shulchan Aruch.  

In the Bais Yosef, Rabbi Yosef Karo gathered all Halachic ruling from recent and older Poskim as well as their sources in the Talmud, Midrashim and Geonim and applied them to their setting in the Tur. Originally Rabbi Yosef Caro intended on the Beit Yosef being a book in itself but in the end he created it as an appendix to the Tur. There was even a point where he considered structuring it on the Yad Hachazak but disregarded the idea since the Rambam did not include any sources at all which would result in a very bulky and extended text. The Bais Yosef also fixes a number of printing errors that fell into the text of the Tur over the years.

Sections of the Beit Yosef were initially published at different times; Orach Chaim (Venice 1550), Yoreh Deah (Venice 1551), Even Haezer (Sabbionetta 1553), Choshen Mishpat (Sabbionetta 1559). Due to great demand the entire Bais Yosef was reprinted shortly afterwords (Venice 1564).

One of the main opponents of the Bais Yosef was Rebbe Yosef ibn Lev, head of the Yeshiva in Salonica. For years Rebbe Yosef ben Lev would give a Shiur on the Tur, in front of him sat sixty students each a master in one Masechta of the Talmud. After reciting each Halacha he would call upon the student whos Masecta the law was rooted in to recite the sources for all to hear. If the student could not do so, Rebbe Yosef ibn Lev himself would trace the Halachic sources via memory never making a mistake. One day neither he nor any of the students could recall the source of a Halacha were unable to remember it under any circumstances. Finally Rebbe Yosef ben Lev asked for a copy of the Beit Yosef where he easily found the source to the Halacha. He took this indecent as a divine sign the books of Rabbi Yosef Caro were destined to be studied by all due to the weakness of the new generations, and he instructed his students to start using them.