Hacham David Nahmias

Date of Birth: 5593 (1833)
Date of Death: 8th of Elul, 5692 (1932)

The Daily Sage, a database of Jewish Spanish sages

A Short Tribute

Hacham David Nahmias was born to Sultana and Abraham in Morocco in 1833. He immigrated to the Land of Israel with his parents as a child, where they settled in Jerusalem. He learned Torah in Hacham David Ben Shimon's yeshiva (who was also known as the Tsuf Devash) and from the Maghrebian sages of Jerusalem.

Hacham David Nahmias married Esther and the couple had five children: Abraham, Yaakov, Esther, Rachel and Sarah. After being ordained to the rabbinate, Hacham David Nahmias left for Egypt to officiate as rabbi of the city of Tanta (located between Cairo and Alexandria) and to preside over its rabbinic court. He served the community for forty years.

At the time, the great rabbinic courts of Cairo and Alexandria were the only ones authorized to deal in issues of marriage and divorce. Cairo's chief rabbi, however, accorded Hacham David Nahmias permission to deal in those religious laws because he was personally acquainted with him and had been well aware of his level of eruditeness in Torah from his days in his father's yeshiva.

Hacham David Nahmias is the author of Mahaneh Dan – a book of original commentary on Torah, Talmud and halachic rulings that includes various sermons and was published in Jerusalem in 1927. He did not seek approbations for his book, and writes in its introduction: I hereby state that, having aimed for the truth, I require no apologies or approbations, for it has already been said that “he received the truth from its source".

He returned to Jerusalem in his old age and passed away at the age of 99 on 8 Elul, 5692 (1932).

A few quotes from the Rabbi on Love of Israel

in which he teaches that not all, the righteous and the youth, will be lost by the generation's sinning

"My wrath burns against the shepherds, and I will punish the goats: for the Lord of hosts has remembered his flock, the house of Judah". I, the writer take it upon myself to interpret the intent of what is written in Zachariah. "My anger burns against the shepherds" - The righteous are called the shepherds. It would be appropriate that there be wrath upon Israel because of their sins, and upon the righteous, who are the shepherds, as well as on "the goats", which means the youth, who are still young as goats and have also been caught up in the generation's sin… The Holy One, blessed be He, treats his flock, Israel, with compassion and his people and flock will not all be lost…in the battle by the attribute of judgement, as prosecutor of Israel, so that the mouths of all prosecutors will be sealed shut.

Hacham David Nahmias, Mahane Dan, p. 165b, Zuckerman Press, Jerusalem, 1927 From 'The Daily Sage'