Samuel David Luzzatto

Samuel David Luzzatto (Hebrew: שמואל דוד לוצאטו, Italian pronunciation: [ˈsaːmwel ˈdaːvid lutˈtsatto]; 22 August 1800 – 30 September 1865), also known by the Hebrew acronym Shadal (שד״ל), was an Italian-Austrian Jewish scholar, poet, and a member of the Wissenschaft des Judentums movement.

Early life

Luzzatto was born in Trieste on 22 August 1800 (Rosh Hodesh, 1 Elul, 5560), and died at Padua on 30 September 1865 (Yom Kippur, 10 Tishrei 5626). While still a boy, he entered the Talmud Torah of his native city, where besides Talmud, in which he was taught by Abraham Eliezer ha-Levi, chief rabbi of Trieste and a distinguished pilpulist, he studied ancient and modern languages and science under Mordechai de Cologna, Leon Vita Saraval, and Raphael Baruch Segré, who later became his father-in-law. He studied the Hebrew language also at home, with his father, who, though a turner by trade, was an eminent Talmudist.

Luzzatto manifested extraordinary ability from his very childhood, such that while reading the Book of Job at school, he formed the intention to write a commentary thereon, considering the existing commentaries to be deficient. In 1811 he received, as a prize, Montesquieu's Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur décadence, which contributed much to the development of his critical faculties. Indeed, his literary activity began in that very year, for it was then that he undertook to write a Hebrew grammar in Italian; translated into Hebrew the life of Aesop; and wrote exegetical notes on the Pentateuch. The discovery of an error in the published editions of the Targum of Onkelos induced him to study Aramaic.

At the age of thirteen Luzzatto was withdrawn from school, attending only the Talmud lectures of Abraham Eliezer ha-Levi. While reading the Ein Yaakov he came to the conclusion that vowels and accents did not exist in the time of the Talmudists and that the Zohar, speaking as it does of vowels and accents, must necessarily be of later composition.