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Vali (Valle), Moses David

The 1901 Jewish Encyclopedia

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Italian rabbi and physician; born at Padua; died there 1777. He was a cabalistic scholar of repute, and lectured before the Paduan association known as "Mebaḳeshe Adonai," in company with the two noted scholars Israel Hezekiah Treves and Jacob Ḥazaḳ. These lectures were attended by Moses Ḥayyim Luzzatto, who, becoming deeply interested in cabalistic research, began the study of it under Vali bothwith the association and in his own home, the acute intellect of Luzzat to exceeding that of his confrères. At the age of twenty-five Vali wrote a polemical work in Italian against Christianity, divided into seven parts, and entitled "I Sette Giorni della Verità." He wrote also, in Hebrew, seventy "tiḳḳunim" on Deuteronomy 34:12. Between 1721 and 1767 he wrote eight large volumes in Hebrew (Almanzi MSS. Nos. 269-276), the greater part of them consisting of a commentary upon the entire Bible. They are still unpublished. Ephraim Luzzatto wrote a sonnet (No. 50 in his collection of poems) entitled "Eleh Bene ha-Ne'urim," praising the lectures of Vali and Treves.