A poem in honor of the 23rd yahrzeit of my father
Alexander Solomon
(Alexander Peretz ben Reb Pesach Yehudah)
Kaf-Tes Tamuz 5761
“The income rises to meet the expenses,”
Not a license to spend recklessly,
Rather, my father’s statement of faith.
That Hashem would give you
What you really needed,
That the money would be there
For the things that mattered.
My dad understood the difference between needs and wants.
His budget included things he considered essential,
Music lessons for his children,
“All of my children will learn to play a musical instrument.”
Yeshivah education –
Including my year in Israel
And three years of dorming at Stern College.
A chazan like his father and grandfather,
Music flowed through his blood,
Coming out in the songs he sang,
Spontaneously.
But he never went for the stage.
Creative and practical,
He looked to his father for guidance on his career prospects.
“What should I do?”
He asked his father.
“What are you good at?”
“Math.”
“You’ll be an accountant.”
This proclamation set his course,
And saved him from the front lines in the Korean war.
They sent him to France and Germany
To be part of the war’s Finance Division.
It also provided for a good living,
When he settled down with my mother,
When private practice did not prove so steady,
He signed on with the IRS,
International tax examiner,
He would enter the big corporations,
Red pen in hand,
Not looking to “catch” anybody
But honestly to see
If the numbers added up.
His cases were puzzles.
Was the money declared properly? Was this income or expense?
“Solomon’s pen strikes again,”
They said when he finished his work.
A practical dreamer,
He believed in each of his children.
When my brother Lenny said
That music was his path,
My father stood behind him.
Dad put aside money every day
For his lottery tickets.
He pored over the numbers,
Said he had a “system,”
And one day he would make a breakthrough
And win the big one.
And he would win – $20 here, $200 there.
At the end of the year, he counted his tickets,
Wins and losses,
And determined if the ledger was red or black.
In the picture that was my father,
Layered into his portrait,
His love for his family,
Calls to his brothers at least once a week,
His children several times that,
My mother the final ruler in his house.
“Your mother calls the shots,” he would say.
“The income rises to meet the expenses,”
A statement of faith that,
In the end,
Hashem had his back.
May your memory be a blessing, Alexander Peretz Solomon.
May your neshamah have an aliyah.
By Judith Dinowitz
