Rav Moshe Dovid Vali was born to his father, Rav Shmuel, around the year 5457 in Padua, Italy. As a youth, he learned from the sages of Padua. He was a talmid muvhak of the Ramchal, and they spent many years together learning Nigleh and Nistar. In many places in his writings, Rav Moshe Dovid notes at the top of the pages revelations and visions that he merited to have.
Rav Mordechai Shmuel Girundi, the Rav of Padua in the generation after Rav Moshe Dovid, describes him in his sefer Toldos Chachmei Italia: “I heard wonders from his Torah and chassidus and holiness and he was a talmid muvhak and close confidant of the Tanna Eloki Moreinu Harav Moshe Chaim Luzatto. And he was an overall wise man and a wondrous speaker and a mekubal, and he compiled a commentary on all of Tanach in the way of ס“פרד ...aside for other compilations that are truth and he compiled them in holiness.”
Rav Moshe Dovid passed away on 7 Teves 5537 and was buried in Padua. More than two hundred years after his passing, his comprehensive commentary on Tanach was printed, and its thirty volumes have been preserved in the British Museum.
