Tarat ha-Hattat begins with an introduction by the Rema. He informs that Tarat ha-Hattat was written precisely because of the popularity of Sha'arei Dura, which, "due to its brevity, people wish to learn while [standing] on one foot." Tarat ha-Hattat is not, however, merely a clarification of Sha'arei Dura, although arranged according to and following the former work, but its purpose, as Rema writes, is not only to add contemporary customs, to which Rema placed great weight, to that early work, but to teach practical halakhah. Furthermore, many of the laws, particularly in the area of issur ve-hetter, as explained by R. Caro in his Shulhan Arukh, which has become widespread, are not applicable in these lands. The por­tion of the work on issur ve-hetter is followed by Hilkhot Niddah, which also has an intro­duction from the Rema. Tarat ha-Hattat was written about ten years before the Mapah, Rema's glosses on the Shulhan Arukh.

The frame on the title page is a copy of the border with mythological figures first used in a Hebrew book in Sabbioneta and afterwards elsewhere. The first edition had a dec­orative frame with cherubim and a trumpet, the second the floral pillars much used by Prostitz. This edition is dated Thursday, 9 Kislev, 351 (December 6, 1590).

Five years after the publication of Tarat ha-Hattat, R. Hayyim ben Bezalel (c. 1520-1588)­ the older brother of R. Judah Loew of Prague (Maharal), a close colleague of the Rema, both having studied by R. Shalom Shakhna of Lublin, and a person of considerable stature in his own right-expressed disapproval of that work, and, to a lesser degree, of R. Caro's Shulhan Arukh. His language in the introduction to Vikku'ah Mayim Hayyim (Amsterdam, 1712), a small work (2, 26 ff.), although always referring to the Rema respectfully, is so vehement that later editions omitted the introduction. The Rema entitled his book Tarat ha-Hattat החטאת from, "This is the Torah of the sin offering" (Leviticus 6: 18). Hayyim writes that it is aptly named, for it causes people to sin חטא, comparing it to the serpent of bronze made by Moses (Numbers 21 :9) for a good purpose but which later had to be destroyed. Tarat ha-Hattat, as with other halakhic digests, is a threat to the proper study of Torah and encourages the unlearned to decide the law for themselves. There is undue reliance on custom, particularly that of Polish as opposed to German Jewry, in place of halakhah, and Rema, on a subject of serious consequence, issur ve-hetter, is too often lenient in his rulings. R. Hayyim was not the only one to object to Tarat ha-Hattat. Among the others was R. Solomon Luria (Maharshal). However, the Rema and Tarat ha-Hattat had defenders. More importantly, European Jewry decided in favor of the Rema, for, with his glosses on the Shulhan Arukh, he became the decisor for all Ashkenazim to the present time. Printed previously in Cracow (1569 and 1577).