Shadal—Shmuel David Luzzatto שד״ל
the Paduan commentator who defended the plain sense and argued with everyone at once
Padua gave him a chair—for thirty-six years he taught rabbis to be there—and from it he argued both ways at once. Kabbalah he did not believe, and said so in print—his Vikkuach proves the Zohar late; but neither did he bow to Berlin: to Shadal the Torah was Torah, not a literary monument, and its text inviolable.
His commentary on the Chumash is peshat armed with philology—Aramaic, Syriac, Latin—and a living reverence besides. He was the first Jew to translate the Chumash into Italian, printed the unprinted Yehuda ha-Levi, and corresponded, it seems, with all of learned Europe—his letters alone became books.
With his cousin Rachel Morpurgo he traded Hebrew verse; she outlived him by five years. His seminary students carried the Paduan schooling to the communities of Italy and beyond.
Places
Related
Sources
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- Shadal's commentary on the Chumash — peshat, philology, and the argument with Kabbalah and criticism
Scholarship
- The standard reference works and encyclopedias — Trieste and Padua; the seminary from 1829; 1800–1865
Basis: Talmud and midrash.