Eulogy for Friend :: Eulogies Eulogy

Eulogy for Friend 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'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 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 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.