Was Moses Hayyim Luzzatto a Saint, a Heretic, or a Pioneer of Jewish Modernity?

Born in Padua in 1707, Moses Hayyim Luzzatto received a traditional rabbinic education alongside training in philosophy, rhetoric, literature, and other liberal arts. He also delved deeply into kabbalah and claimed to have communed with an angelic messenger who instructed him in the Torah’s mysteries. A polymath, Luzzatto wrote poetry, Hebrew plays, works of theology and mystical speculation, and the guide to moral and spiritual perfection titled Path of the Just, which is popular in yeshivahs today. Some of his writings led him to be condemned as a secret of follower of the Sabbatian heresy, and Italian rabbis eventually forced him out of Italy. Since his death in 1746, he has been admired and claimed as a precursor by both secular and religious Zionists, proponents of the Haskalah, kabbalists of all kinds, and the strictest Haredim.