Book excerpt: The double codes of law composed by R. Joseph Karo during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries mark a watershed in the history of Jewish Halakhah [law]. No further legal project was suggested in later generations. The books suggest a new reading beyond the aspects of positive law. R. Karo continued centuries-long traditions of Jewish erudition, in tandem with responding to global changes in history of law and legality both in Europe, and mainly in the Ottoman Empire. It is a global reading of Jewish Halakhah and modernization of Jewish culture in general.