An Exercise in Civic Kabbalah: The Establishment of an Eruv and Its Socio-religious Context in 18th-Century Padua

In 1720, Rabbi Isaiah Bassan established an eruv hatserot in Padua, enabling Jews to carry items in and out of the ghetto on the Sabbath without transgression. He based this on precedents instituted by his teachers, Benjamin Kohen Vitale in Reggio Emilia and Moses Zacut in Mantua. Ten years later, the kabbalist Moses Hayim Luzzatto lauded Bassan's accomplishment as a spiritual link to the talmudic sage Akiva. Using previously unpublished archival documents, this article considers the connection between the Padua eruv and Luzzatto's claim. It shows socio-religious bonds between Padua and Mantua, discusses the struggle for communal cohesion among Padua Jewry, and argues that Luzzatto and fellow messianic mystics in Padua sprang from a multi-generational movement of Italian Hasidism. This case study situates intellectual and pietistic impulses within a larger societal framework, and explores the relationship between communal irreligiosity and the growth of a pietistic elite in 18th-century northern Italy.