LUZZATTO, MOSÈ HAJAIM. - Jewish poet and Kabbalist, b. in Padua in 1707, d. in Palestine in 1746. Already as a child he composed Hebrew poems. Very young, he occupied himself with Kabbalistic studies. Certain poems written in biblical style display a tendency toward Sabbatianism. Because of his intense mystical life he became convinced that he held conversations with a celestial being or maggidh ("narrator," "announcer"), with Adam, the Patriarchs, Moses, the prophet Elijah and others. The "revelations" were inserted by him into his Kabbalistic writings. L. was the head of a school for the study of the zôhar (v.).
A letter written by one of his pupils and speaking of his visions arrived by chance at the hands of the leader of the struggle against Sabbatianism, Moses Chagis, in Altona; the latter in turn addressed himself in Nov. 1729 to the rabbinate of Venice so that it might oppose the Luzzattian heresy. L. entered into correspondence with Chagis. The latter, not satisfied with the declarations he had received, began to spread alarm among the Italian rabbis, who responded with great calm. Following an excommunication on the part of Chagis, L. promised to renounce his Kabbalistic activity. Having fared badly in commerce, he returned to his beloved studies. Excommunicated by the rabbinate of Venice in 1735, he set out to travel abroad, meeting with a mixed reception; at the age of 40 he went to Palestine for his Kabbalistic studies.
L. is the author of occasional poems, of allegorical dramas, of 150 psalms imitating the biblical ones, of a Poetics and Rhetoric, of a Talmudic Methodology, of a treatise on morals (Metallath fêširim, "Path of the Upright," with German trans. by J. Wohlgemuth, Berlin 1906 and Frankfurt a. M. 1925), of dialogues of philosophical, religious, logical content, etc.
Bibliography
Eugenio Zolli