The Redacted Ramchal

How a controversial figure was rehabilitated by the Mussar movement

​Today is the yarhtzeit (death anniversary) of Moshe Chaim Luzzato, the Ramchal. While Ramchal has been rehabilitated as a classic Orthodox Jewish pietist with his work, Mesilat Yesharim, read in virtually every yeshiva, he was a complicated figure. He faced bans, wrote Hebrew plays, and was involved in major controversies as a kabbalist. David Sclar, in his PhD dissertation, traces the true life of Ramchal, and uncovers fascinating details left out of Chareidi biographical sketckes.

To understand the Ramchal, you have to forget the image of the stoic, elderly sage peering out from the title pages of yeshiva texts. Born in 1707 into a wealthy mercantilist family in Padua, Italy, the young Luzzatto was a brilliant, privileged polymath. Supported entirely by his family's wealth, he spent his days mastering Talmud, Kabbalah, science, and secular literature.

But beneath the surface of his academic brilliance, Luzzatto was orchestrating something much more radical.

The Secret Messianic Confraternity

By his late teens, Luzzatto had formed a highly exclusive, secretive kabbalistic circle called Mevakshe Hashem (Seekers of the Lord). He did not just view himself as a teacher. Luzzatto firmly believed he was the literal reincarnation of the biblical Moses, uniquely destined to bring about the ultimate cosmic redemption.

Operating out of Padua, he acted as the overarching Moses figure and assigned cosmic roles to his inner circle. His colleague Moses David Valle was tapped as Messiah ben David. Isaiah Romanin was designated as Messiah ben Joseph. Jekutiel Gordon was given the title of Seraiah of the Tribe of Dan, essentially serving as the destined military general of the coming messianic armies.

Luzzatto claimed that a maggid (a holy angel) revealed profound mysteries to him by speaking directly through his mouth. Disciples reported that Luzzatto would tremble in awe as a voice entirely distinct from his own delivered celestial secrets. He claimed regular visitations from the souls of Adam, Abraham, the Messiah, Elijah, and Metatron. He even boasted the ability to read everyone's previous incarnations.

Through this divine dictation, Luzzatto believed he was composing an entirely new, updated version of the Zohar itself.

The Sealed Trunk and the Buried Zohar

This new version of the Zohar, along with the other works he claimed were dictated by the magid and historical holy souls, became the primary target of a massive rabbinic heresy hunt. When news of Luzzatto's celestial communications leaked, it caused absolute panic among the European rabbinic establishment. Still reeling from the catastrophic Sabbatian messianic movement decades earlier, they moved swiftly to crush him.

To appease his powerful opponents, Luzzatto was forced to sign a humiliating oath in 1730. In it, he promised to "gather and conceal" all works dictated to him by the magid, specifically emphasizing the writings composed in the language of the original Zohar.

Following this agreement, Luzzatto's papers were confiscated under the strict supervision of his primary teacher, Isaiah Bassan, and another local rabbi. The controversial manuscripts were locked inside a heavy chest secured with iron locks. For safekeeping, this sealed trunk was entrusted to Luzzatto’s uncle, Moses Alpron, a prominent and trusted member of the Padua community.

For several years, the trunk remained sealed and untouched. However, the controversy flared up again in 1734 and 1735. Ashkenazic and Venetian rabbis renewed their vicious attacks. In October 1735, the Venetian rabbinate issued an official excommunication against Luzzatto's writings and anyone daring to harbor them. They demanded that the manuscripts be surrendered within fifteen days so they could be publicly burned like the books of "heretics and blasphemers."

Facing intense harassment and desperately seeking to clear his own name from the growing scandal, Isaiah Bassan eventually struck a backroom deal. He reached an agreement with Jacob Poppers, the chief rabbi of Frankfurt and one of Luzzatto's fiercest Ashkenazic opponents. In exchange for his own exoneration, Bassan surrendered the iron-locked chest containing his student's life's work.

But the books were never burned. Bassan and other moderate Italian rabbis, including Samson Morpurgo, fiercely advocated for a compromise. Morpurgo strongly opposed burning the manuscripts because they contained holy biblical verses, midrashic quotes, and the actual names of God. He argued that book burning was a profane practice unbecoming of Jewish tradition. Ultimately, they agreed that the texts would be permanently buried. Poppers gave Bassan the choice of sending the chest to either Frankfurt or Hamburg for this final interment. This served as a mutually acceptable fate, complying with the strict demands for the books' total removal from society while respecting the holy words written on the pages.

The exact geographic location where that physical iron chest was buried remains a mystery. However, Luzzatto's new version of the Zohar and his other kabbalistic writings actually survived.

Before the original writings were confiscated and sealed away, devoted disciples like Jekutiel Gordon and others in Luzzatto's secret yeshiva frantically made their own copies. They covertly disseminated these duplicated manuscripts to other Jewish communities across Italy and Poland. Because these secret copies survived the heresy hunt, modern scholars have been able to locate and publish them. For example, the 20th-century scholar Isaiah Tishby discovered the complete manuscript of Tikunim Hadashim (New Tikunim, a Zoharic text composed by Luzzatto), which fully laid bare Luzzatto's extensive messianic ideas and tasks to the modern world.

Black Magic and Scandalous Rumors

The hunt for his books was accompanied by vicious personal attacks. The establishment mocked Luzzatto as an "empty-headed boy" and a "suckling babe," pointing to his youth, unmarried status, and lack of a beard as proof that he possessed no real piety.

Things quickly took a dark turn when Venetian rabbis launched an investigation and claimed to have found occultist implements in Luzzatto's possession. The stash included a book of magical oaths, a black-framed mirror, a black-handled knife, and a black wax candle.

When cornered with accusations of black magic, Luzzatto awkwardly stammered and blushed. His defense was that the highly suspicious items were simply his shaving kit used to trim his mustache, and the candle was only black because it got sooty from nightly use. The rabbis were entirely unconvinced.

Simultaneously, a terrible rumor began circulating within his own extended family. Luzzatto was accused of acting immorally and making amorous advances toward his cousin, who had recently become engaged. Luzzatto fiercely denied the charges, but the scandal deeply upset his teacher Isaiah Bassan and added fuel to the fire of his detractors.

The Theatrical Mystic

Perhaps the most fascinating element left out of traditional biographies is Luzzatto's career as a celebrated dramatist. Early secular historians actually focused on his poetry and plays long before paying attention to his kabbalistic pursuits.

Luzzatto brilliantly appropriated the 16th-century pastoral tragicomedy styles popular in Italy, but he stripped them of their intentional frivolousness, injecting them instead with deep themes of truth and redemption. He wrote these plays for specific occasions, filling them with thinly veiled kabbalistic allegories.

Around 1727, he wrote Migdal 'Oz (Tower of Strength) to honor the wedding of his teacher's son. The plot follows King Aner, who builds an impenetrable tower and promises his daughter, Shlomit, to any man who can successfully enter it. The true hero, Shalom, manages to get inside, but a villain named Zifa steals the credit. Eventually, the truth prevails. On the surface, it is a romantic drama. To Luzzatto's inner circle, it was a profound allegory about the forces of holiness overcoming the forces of darkness.

Later, in 1743, he wrote La-Yesharim Tehilah (Praise to the Righteous) in Amsterdam, likely commissioned by a wealthy supporter for a wedding. This play took a more direct allegorical route. The characters were literal personifications of moral traits. Truth (Emet) is banished, and Deceit (Sheker) rules the kingdom, until Truth and Reason (Sekhel) finally triumph.

His theatrical flair bled into his real life to his detriment. When Luzzatto celebrated his own wedding to Tsiporah Finzi, he staged a play in his father's house. He and his fellow mystics intended the performance to act as a literal, kabbalistic ritual to bring about the cosmic redemption. The Venetian rabbis caught wind of it and strongly condemned the activity.

From Hunted Heretic to Orthodox Saint

The relentless pressure eventually broke Ramchal. Fleeing the harassment and the burial of his most prized mystical writings, Luzzatto relocated to Amsterdam. Stripped of his family's wealth, he lived on charity and likely worked as a diamond cutter or lens grinder. It was here, in exile, that he wrote his masterpiece, Mesilat Yesharim (The Path of the Upright).

But there is a massive historical irony hidden in this text. The original manuscript was not a calm, ethical monologue. It was a biting, aggressive polemic written as a dialogue between a truly spiritual hasid and an arrogant, Talmud-obsessed hakham. The original text roasted the Ashkenazic rabbinic establishment for valuing legalistic debate over genuine spirituality and the fear of God.

Knowing this would only invite more persecution, Luzzatto heavily redacted his own work. He stripped out the kabbalistic undertones and the anti-establishment critiques, smoothing it into the sanitized, non-polemical monologue we know today.

That watered-down version was eventually adopted by the 19th-century Lithuanian Musar movement. They embraced the brilliant ethical framework while completely ignoring his messianic past, his plays, and his anti-establishment views.

Seeking ultimate spiritual fulfillment, Luzzatto left Amsterdam in 1743 for the Holy Land, settling in Acre. Just a few years later, around 1746, he and his family tragically perished in a plague. Today, traditionalists claim he is buried in Tiberias right next to Rabbi Akiva. It is a fitting, highly respectable resting place for an Orthodox saint, even if the historical evidence points to him actually being buried in the nearby, much quieter village of Kefar Yasif.