Dear friends, our Jewish New Year, 5782, has arrived
and we are facing a special stage in our lives. We are facing Yom Kippur, the
day of "Atonement" or "Forgiveness," which concludes the
Ten Days of Repentance, during which one's fate for the coming year is decided.
As our friend well said, "On this day we "kosher" our souls and
beg for a place in the Book of Life.
Reflecting on this, I noticed (I think many of you
too) that the word kosher as a term in Judaism, meaning the permissibility or
suitability of something from a traditional perspective, has long gone far
beyond its true purpose and has been used by people of various professions who
are not Jewish (very often in medical practice too!). But what makes me
especially happy is that this word is used quite aptly when one wants to
emphasize either something very good or quite the opposite. For example, a good
person is described as "he is kosher," while another person is warned
that “he is not kosher”, which means that he should beware! Or: "your
thoughts are not kosher", "the test is not made kosher",
"if you are going to do something, do it all kosher", etc... The
examples are numerous, and they all reflect the greatest power of the word
kosher as a "symbol of the highest quality" - a person, event, phenomenon...
In my opinion, when applied to people, kosher means
purity of the Soul, which, unfortunately, does not always match the
"vessel" (body) in which it resides. Our sages spoke about this very concisely
in Pirkei Avot: "Do not evaluate the outside of the jug, but evaluate what
is in the jug”. I read this thought for the first time and borrowed it with
great pleasure from our President Levi Leviev's recent address to Bukharian Jews
on the holiday of Rosh Hashanah in the newspaper "Menorah".
The human soul is not easy to discern, and it is
also not easy to understand who is who. I assume that most people know their
own worth at heart: an honest man knows that he is honest, a thief knows that
he has stolen and a criminal knows that he has killed, it is just difficult and
not always possible to understand the essence of these people. Although it is
known that some categories of non-kosher people, for example, scoundrels,
snitches, and scum, sincerely consider their behavior a "moral norm”. But
that is not what I intend to convey. This is about the fact that the basis of
our worldview and actions is our Soul, so everything we do and think reflects
its essence. Naturally, all, even very decent, that is, kosher people make
mistakes and sin. What else could it be? But, sins are not the same at all
levels: the amplitude of sins is great and, accordingly, a person by his sins
causes harm of varying degrees to people around him, but above all to himself,
to his soul.
On the day of Yom Kippur I wish all people to look
into their souls, to try on this Holy Day to be objective to themselves and
give the right assessment of their actions. Only then will it be possible to
come at least one step closer to that high purity, which is the expression of
the kosher essence of the Soul. It is important to maintain this purity not
only until the next Day of Judgment, but for the rest of our lives. And this does
not sound naïve at all. It is very important for each of us to raise our
self-esteem and to have as many Kosher Souls in our environment as possible!
Editor-in-chief Doctor Zoya Maksumova
(September 2021, "Ladies’ World №243)
