[October 13, 1978. Mr. Solis-Cohen was a founding partner of the Philadelphia law firm of Wolf, Block, Schorr and Solis-Cohen. He was the son of the well-known compiler of the Pharmacopoeia and Hebrew scholar Solomon Solis-Cohen, and brother of the writer Emily Solis-Cohen. The family is written up in the Encyclopædia Judaica s.v. Solis-Cohen.]
Three days ago I was working on a lecture dealing with a prominent figure on the French literary scene who happens to be a Sephardic Jew. He pictures the Jew as essentially a wounded man, one racked by his Jewishness. The world for him is a desert, and God is enwrapped in silence. For him the keynote is exile, the stuff of his writing a kind of brave despair. The news of Hays Solis-Cohen's death broke into my thoughts on this, and it occurred to me that his philosophy of life could be expressed by reversing this writer's terms. The one saw the Jew as a wounded man; the other saw in the Jew, rejoicing in his Jewishness, the acme of spiritual health. The one saw the world as a desert, the other as an orchard. The one saw God as the God of silence, the other saw Him as the God of communication, one with whom you could stay in touch. The keynote of the one was exile; while the other saw in the combination of Judaism and America the best of all possible worlds.
It is deceptively easy to say, why not? Was not Hays Solis-Cohen one on whom fortune had smiled, one who had every reason to see the world in a positive light? Yet the very fact in itself can be burdensome. His father had set him a very high standard. Solomon Solis-Cohen combined the sciences and the humanities and community service in a way which is hardly possible in our complex age. Hays hewed out his own path. In his lifelong professional growth as a man of the law, he acquired a reputation for probity second to none. Even those who disagreed with him on this issue or that had to concede that he was a man of conscience, and for him principle came first, and no claim of expediency could make it take second place.
Hays Solis-Cohen took to heart the moral of his father's best-known poem, and knew how quickly love can pass by if it is not grasped and cherished. He loved much and well. He loved America with a passionate devotion. When my son was born, he wrote to me, pointing out the privilege of being born an American citizen. He loved the ideals and traditions of Judaism, and always found them in harmony with his Americanism. He loved his grand-children, and a special warmth came into his voice when he spoke of them. His image will, I know, be a continuing inspiration to them, and a warning too, not to depart from his stern ideals and vision of right and wrong. What the loss of a singularly precious one of them meant to him we can imagine but not fully know. To my dear friends, his children and their spouses, I can only say, grieve, yes, but follow it with rejoicing that to the last you assured him of your devoted love and support. And what shall we say to his life's companion, his beloved wife? Rooted deeply in the east, he took a partner from the west. Immersed in the high conservatism of Mikveh Israel, he joined one reared in the tradition of classic reform. East and west, tradition and innovation met in beautiful harmony. The complementation was perfect.
Institutions too, felt the outflow of his love. Dropsie University, Gratz College, Thomas Jefferson University, Mikveh Israel, the Federation, were all the recipients of his time and his substance, and aside from these, there were the acts of charity done without fanfare and known only to the beneficiary.
Hays Solis-Cohen is not only a loss to his family and the institutions in which he interested himself. He was part of a vanished breed, an authentic Sephardi Jew. Sephardi Jewry had a knack for harmonizing, synthesizing, melding the best from wherever it was to be found. This type of personality fares ill with our modern need for typing, systematizing, homogenizing. Hays Solis-Cohen was his own man.
The life he led was full, long; spent among the places, insitutions and people that he loved. He died at the emotional peak of the Jewish year. As the closing Atonement prayer, the Neila, was uttered he drew his last breaths. The blast of the ram's horn, which signaled for us the closing of the gates of Heaven, signaled the opening of another gate for him through which he gently slipped. To him, as he approaches the throne of glory, we can say in the closing words of the Atonement service:
Go eat your bread with joy; and drink your wine with a merry heart: for God has already accepted your works.
[October 28, 1990]
During the last months, weeks and days of the life of Hays Solis-Cohen, during that hard time of his illness, he was not dying. He was living. This may seem to be a matter of semantics or playing with words, but I learned from him during that period a lesson which I had previously only perceived in a fragmentary fashion. When a newborn utters its first loud wail, a sound which touches the hearts of the bystanders, it is perhaps an expression of regret that its stay in this beautiful world is temporary. Perhaps the baby knows what we often forget, that we are all ultimately terminal. I do not think for one moment that in his last days on earth Hays was in a state of denial or rationalization. He knew how sick he was. But he was determined to take the advice of the song:
I'm gonna live, live, live until I die.
With one important difference. The implication of the song is that one should take from life whatever one can grab before it is too late. Hays wanted to give whatever he could, and it did not matter to him whether his life stretched before him for decades or for hours, he was going to be one and the same, a person who held fast to his integrity, who had a deep interest in everything going on around him, who wanted to be quietly involved, who wanted to contribute in whatever way he could.
There was to be a meeting at the synagogue a few weeks ago. He said to me: "I won't be able to make the meeting, but I should like to know your thoughts on it, and I would like to hear what happens." It was not a dying man who could not make that meeting, it was a man who was fully alive, who, if he was impeded by circumstances from doing what he wished, could yet find ways of taking part. Just one week ago I spoke to him on the phone. He wanted to know what I was doing, and on Monday, as I promised, I put in the mail for him the text of some lectures that he wanted to see. He spoke little of sickness or discomfort, and was as pleasant and cheerful as always. It was fun to talk to him, a man a week away from a long anticipated death. In words of scripture, he swallowed up death in victory, because he lived his life to the full, plucking and using each precious day as it was granted to him. And he was as gracious, courteous and giving in the last week of his life as he was in all the other weeks.
Hays was a wonderful listener. His most characteristic utterance was uh-huh. This struck me, I suppose, because, as a child, I was taught to avoid this particular locution, and it shook me a little when I found him using it. He rehabilitated it for me, for he used it to say: I'm listening, and it constituted for him the least interruption he could make. He did not like to disturb the flow of a person's thoughts, and when someone was speaking he gave all his attention. He made everyone he came into contact with feel important, because he gave the sense that he valued the input of even the least person in the world, and as such he was a truly humble man, because he believed in the worth of others, and saw no reason for placing himself above them.
Hays was blessed with a devoted family who were fully cognizant of his unusual qualities. In turn he was a wonderful son and brother, husband and father, grandfather. The anguish he felt at the loss of a precious child did not bend the spirit that he inherited from a long line of strong people. He mourned, took comfort in his faith and in the support of those close to him - and he continued his life. Preeminent among these was his wife Ginny, who ministered to him at the end, as always, with compassion, humor, and, above all, love. He worked hard and faithfully throughout his life, and appreciated the consideration and respect he earned from his colleagues.
Hays was devoted to his synagogue. As he stood or sat there meditatively, he looked as totally integrated into his surrounding as the holy scrolls in the ark. He belonged. It was his signature on the synagogue letterhead that certified to the U.S. consul in Liverpool that I had a post in Philadelphia, and persuaded him to issue a visa, no little thing in those McCarthy days. Thirty-five years connect then and now, and in all that time my family and I have treasured our association with this special human being. Some weeks ago Nita told him that he was one of her favorite people, and knowing that she is truthful in all things, Hays appreciated her comment. Things like that, small tokens of the regard in which he was held were sufficient reward for him. He did not look to tear the world apart and reshape it in his own image. He was content to leave it a little better than he found it, by his concern, his attentiveness, and the feeling for the right way that he inspired in others. He had uprightness, honesty and sincerity. It is by those qualities that we shall remember him, and through them he will continue to influence us for good.