412 A History of Judaism
In London in 1715, David Nieto, the haham (chief rabbi) of the Span-
ish and Portuguese synagogue, published a vehement accusation of
Sabbatianism against his contemporary, Nehemiah Hayon, whose Luri-
anic doctrines concerning the faces of the deity had been approved by
the haham in Amsterdam but attacked by his Ashkenazi counterpart
in that city. Even more enthusiastic in pursuit of heresy was Moshe
Hagiz, a leading kabbalist himself and supporter of rabbinic author-
ity. Hagiz, like Nieto, likewise attacked Nehemiah Hayon between
1713 and 1715, but he also engaged in intense polemics against Yonatan
Eybeschütz in the 1720s and against Moshe Hayyim Luzzatto in the
1730s.^48
In the case of Luzzatto, Hagiz’s intervention may be thought success-
ful. Luzzatto was a remarkable mystic and poet, who had experienced a
revelation at the age of twenty, in which a maggid appeared to him (as
had happened to others before, such as Yosef Karo). Among Luzzatto’s
disciples, Moshe David Valle identified himself as the Messiah, son of
David, regarding Sabbetai Zevi as the Messiah, son of Joseph. Luzzatto
himself was designated the reincarnation of Moses, and his marriage in
1731 as the union of the male and female elements in the divine world
which formed the first element in the messianic process. The suspicions
of Sabbatianism voiced by Hagiz were not unreasonable, and the rabbis
of Venice forced Luzzatto to migrate to Amsterdam in 1735, ordering
his works to be burned. Forbidden by the Venetian court to write kab-
balistic works, in Amsterdam Luzzatto produced instead one of the
most influential works of Jewish ethics ever written, the Mesillat Yesha‑
rim (‘The Path of the Upright’), which described the path of ethical
ascent the individual must climb until sanctity is reached:
It is fundamentally necessary both for saintliness and for the perfect wor-
ship of God to realize clearly what constitutes man’s duty in this world,
and what goal is worthy of his endeavors throughout all the days of his
life. Our sages have taught us that man was created only to find delight in
the Lord, and to bask in the radiance of His Presence. But the real place for
such happiness is the world to come, which has been created for that very
purpose. The present world is only a path to that goal. ‘This world’, said
our Sages, ‘is like a vestibule before the world to come.’ Therefore has
God, blessed be His Name, given us the commandments. For this world is
the only place where the commandments can be observed. Man is put here
is order to earn with the means at his command the place that has been
prepared for him in the world to come.