Acharonim אחרונים
The «last ones» — authorities from the Shulchan Aruch to the present: commentators on the code and modern deciders.
The line between rishonim and acharonim is conventional, usually drawn at the Shulchan Aruch of 5325. From that point the genre itself changes: the argument is no longer with the Talmud directly but with the code and its commentators — the Taz, the Shach, the Magen Avraham, later the Mishnah Berurah and the Aruch haShulchan.
The era contains almost everything that shaped modern Jewry: Tzfat and Lurianic kabbalah, the Council of Four Lands, the Chmielnicki massacres, Shabtai Tzvi, hasidism and the Vilna Gaon's response, Volozhin and the mussar movement, Haskalah and emancipation, mass emigration, the Shoah, the State of Israel.
Acharonim do not dispute rishonim directly but explain and weigh them. Twentieth-century authorities belong here too, and their rulings on medicine, technology and statehood shape living halacha today.