New York (VINNEWS/Rabbi Yair Hoffman) Imagine, for a moment, a large Mesivta high school.  It could be one of the 87 such Mesivtos in Lakewood, New Jersey or another one in Brooklyn, or Passaic, or say, Mesivta  Chaim Shlomo – Darchei Torah’s Mesivta.  It could even be anywhere else where there is a Torah community.

Now imagine further a tenth grader in that Mesivta.  A tenth grader is generally a 15 year old.  Now imagine that the 15 year old has now been placed in charge of the entire Mesivta.  And not just the Mesivta, but the entire Yeshiva. And not just the Yeshiva but, he is named the head of the Vaad HaRabbonim of the community.  And imagine further that he is not just the head of the Vaad HaRabbonim, but of the Moetzes of the entire country’s Agudath Israel.

Now imagine no further because it did happen.  And today, the 1st of Elul, is his yahrtzeit.

That fifteen year old boy was Rabbeinu Dovid HaNagid, the son of Rabbeinu Avraham ben HaRambam and the grandson of the Rambam himself. He would hold that office — with one long, bitter interruption — for more than six decades. He would be slandered, deposed, exiled, and hunted. He would return in triumph. And along the way he would produce a body of Torah that Egyptian Jews would read aloud in shul every Shabbos for centuries afterward.

Rabbeinu Dovid was born in Fustat (Old Cairo) in 1222 or 1223. His father, Rabbeinu Avraham ben HaRambam — who had himself succeeded the Rambam as Nagid at the age of eighteen — was niftar in 1237, when Dovid was only fifteen.

The household in which he was raised was extraordinary even by the standards of that era. His father had authored HaMaspik L’Ovdei Hashem, a monumental mussar guide to avodas Hashem, and had led a circle of chassidei Mitzrayim devoted to intense spiritual discipline

The Office of Nagid

Despite his youth, Rabbeinu Dovid was appointed Nagid within a few months of his father’s petirah.

The Nagid was no honorary title. He was the recognized head of the Jewish community under Muslim rule — appointing dayanim, supervising batei din, overseeing communal funds, representing the Jews before the government, and answering she’eilos from far beyond Egypt’s borders. In Rabbeinu Dovid’s day, that jurisdiction extended over Egypt, Syria, and Eretz Yisroel.

Opposition arose within a few years — very likely on account of his age — and he was removed from office. In 1252 he was restored, this time with formal government recognition, and he held the position for decades thereafter.

Rabbeinu Dovid commanded a broad mastery across the range of Jewish literature, appears to have been trained in medicine as well, and maintained correspondence with the leading scholars of Sefarad, Syria, and Italy.

Three works are traditionally attributed to him:

1. Midrash Rabbeinu Dovid HaNagid (Midrash Dovid). His largest work is a collection of drashos on the weekly parshiyos and the haftaros, composed in Judeo-Arabic. The commentary on the first parsha of Bereishis appeared in Arabic in Alexandria in 1914 and in Hebrew translation as Midrash Dovid in Yerushalayim in 1947; the commentaries on Bereishis and Shemos were published in Hebrew translation as Midrash Rabbi Dovid HaNagid in Yerushalayim between 1964 and 1968. Rabbi Yaakov ben Chananel HaSikili translated some of the drashos and incorporated them into his Toras HaMincha.

The reception of this sefer is itself remarkable. These drashos became beloved among Egyptian Jewry and were read in shuls for generations — the practice being to read from the work on Shabbos following Mincha. A grandson’s Torah became the fixed Shabbos afternoon seder of an entire country.

1. Commentary on Pirkei Avos. Published in Arabic in Alexandria (1901) and Cairo (1932), and translated into Hebrew by Ben-Tzion Krynfiss as Sefer Midrash Dovid (Yerushalayim, 1944). This is the work through which most contemporary readers encounter him; an English translation has been published in recent years by Mosaica Press.
2. Midrash Eichah. Homilies on Megillas Eichah, published by A. I. Katsh in Sinai, volume 65 (1969). A commentary on Nevuas HaYeled is also attributed to him, said to have been composed for the rabbanim of Barcelona.

The greatest test came in his old age.

Enemies denounced Rabbeinu Dovid to the Egyptian governor, and he was forced to flee to Akko, then still under Crusader rule. In 1285 a physician, al-Muhadhab Abul-Hassan ben al-Muwafak, was installed as Nagid in his place.

An older man, driven from his post and his country, might have quietly retired into silence. Instead, he walked directly into the fiercest ideological battle of his generation.

Rabbi Shlomo Petit had come from northern France and Germany, where he had campaigned to ban the study of the Moreh Nevuchim and Sefer HaMadda. In 1288 he settled in Akko, taught Kabbalah there, and pressed his campaign against the Rambam’s writings, urging that the Moreh Nevuchim be burned. He failed repeatedly and was placed in cherem no fewer than four times. Petit had miscalculated badly: Eretz Yisroel fell under the jurisdiction of the Nagid of Egyptian Jewry — who was, of course, the Rambam’s own grandson.

Rabbeinu Dovid appealed to the communal leadership of the eastern lands to intervene. Between 1286 and 1288, Rav Yishai ben Chizkiyahu, the Exilarch of Damascus; Rav Dovid ben Daniel, the Nasi of Mosul; and Rav Shmuel HaKohen ben Daniel Abu al-Rabi’a, the Rosh Yeshiva of Baghdad, issued a cherem against anyone who insulted the memory of the Rambam. The Rashba, Rabbeinu Shlomo ben Aderes of Barcelona, also intervened, and the controversy was ultimately settled.

One of Rav Shmuel’s two letters of 1288 was addressed directly to Rav Dovid Maimuni HaNagid and the rabbanim of Akko, informing them that a cherem had been issued against Rabbi Shlomo Petit.

Meanwhile, his supporters in Egypt succeeded in reversing the government’s posture toward him, and in approximately 1290 he returned and was reinstated as Nagid. The poet Rav Yosef ben Tanchum HaYerushalmi composed enthusiastic poems marking his return. Worn down by his troubles, Rabbeinu Dovid appointed his son Avraham to share the burdens of office; a document from 1291 bears their joint signatures as negidim.

The timing was perfect. Akko fell to the Mamluks in 1291, the year the Crusader kingdom in Eretz Yisroel came to its end.

Rabbeinu Dovid was niftar in Egypt in 1300. His remains were brought to Eretz Yisroel and interred in Teverya, near the kever of the Rambam. Grandfather and grandson, separated by a century and by a lifetime of struggle, rest side by side.

The historical marker at his kever in Teverya preserves a teaching from the commentary on Pirkei Avos attributed to him: that neither money nor gold nor property nor houses nor assets will avail a person in Olam Haba — only Torah learning, good deeds, and tzedakah performed to the best of one’s ability, because Hashem does not hold grievances against His creations but judges each person solely according to his capacities and his good deeds.

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