Moses Hayim Luzzatto (1707-1746), rabbi, mystic, teacher, poet,
playwright, and writer of ethical works, gathered around him in his
'house of study' in Padua an inner circle of devout Jews who shared
his belief in the imminent arrival of the messianic age and who
privately identified members of their circle as divinely ordained
to usher in the Redemption. To the rabbis of Venice and Frankfurt,
however, Luzzatto was a heretic, whose claims to have written works
at the dictation of a messenger from heaven could not be genuine.
Under pressure from them he was obliged to withdraw a number of
such works, and the manuscripts were either lost or destroyed. Yet
his known works came to earn him admiration: as a literary figure
among the adherents of the Enlightenment, as a great kabbalist and
profound mystic by hasidim and even by some of their leading
opponents, and as a great ethical teacher by all religious streams.
Isaiah Tishby spent many years in the study of Luzzatto and his
group, and succeeded in tracing a number of the lost manuscripts.
In the essays in this volume translated by Morris Hoffman, he
described and annotated the manuscripts which he found, giving the
full text of some of the prose works and of all the poems. From
these manuscripts and Luzzatto's published works, he was able to
correct and add detail to the incomplete picture of Luzzatto and
his mystical world which had been current among scholars. He showed
how far the views of earlier kabbalists and messianists had been
accepted or modified by Luzzatto, and found evidence that he had
influenced the early hasidic movement, so lending weight to Hayim
Nahman Bialik's description of Luzzatto as 'the father and first
begetter' of the three main streams of Judaism in modern times.
Tishby also clarified the messianic role for which, as the Padua
group believed, certain of their members were destined under the
leadership of Luzzatto. One of the most illuminating documents
discovered by Tishby and reproduced here is Luzzatto's version of
his ketubah or marriage contract. The phrases of the traditional
contract are interspersed with a mystical commentary in which
Luzzatto identifies himself with the biblical Moses and interprets
his earthly marriage as a marriage with the Shekhinah, the Divine
Presence or female element of the Godhead. Thus she would be
rescued from exile among the forces of evil and the way would be
cleared for the final redemption. A second key document is the
personal, mystical diary which Luzzatto's second-in-command, Rabbi
Moses David Valle, wrote in the margins of his own voluminous
commentary on the Bible. The commentary itself, written in
impersonal terms, yields autobiographical information, but the
diary entries, in short and often enigmatic notes, record the
personal mystical visions and experiences, encouragements, and
disappointments of the man who saw himself and was seen in
Luzzatto's group as the Messiah ben David.
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