Moshé Haïm Luzzatto, le guide des égarés de la raison et de l'exil

Moshé Haïm Luzzato. In the character and work of Moshé Haïm Luzzato (1707-1746), the two major intellectual currents of the eighteenth century, the rational and the irrational, meet and come into conflict. In Padua, in Amsterdam and finally in the Holy Land, where he makes his «alya » (pilgrimage), he creates Hebrew literature in its modern forms (drama, poetry and a rationalist moral philosophy), founds esoteric literary circles and produced mystical works that bridge the gap between Sabbatianism and Hasidism. He is the contemporary and Western counterpart of Baal Shem-Tov but is also the immediate precursor of Moses Mendelssohn. His Alya has a messianic and Utopian quality which ilinks sixteenth-century Jewish mystical theology to nineteenth-century Zionism. His Jewish venture demonstrates the conflicts typical of the eighteenth century.Neher André. Moshé Haïm Luzzatto, le guide des égarés de la raison et de l'exil. In: Dix-huitième Siècle, n°13, 1981. Juifs et judaïsme. pp. 37-46