Happy birthday, Mankind!

New Year’s greeting for the year 5782 according to the Hebrew calendar.

For two days, starting on Monday evening, world Jewry celebrated Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. The 5782nd anniversary of the creation of man this year holds important messages even for those who do not commemorate this glorious day in the traditional way.

Firstly, the message of the issue of personal responsibility. Central to our prayers are a review of our actions, repentance for our mistakes, and the resolution that we will strive to behave correctly in similar situations in the future.

The millennial tradition of repentance, of acknowledging our personal responsibility, denies us the use of a scapegoat, to make outside circumstances responsible for our transgressions.

We cannot point to someone or something else; we must start solving our common social issues primarily by improving our own behavior. Society, no matter how large, is made up of a multitude of individuals, each of whom is personally responsible for the moral level of his or her greater environment.

Secondly, the backbone of this idea, praying for the well-being of the community, is just as important of a message. Because while we, and only we, are responsible for our actions, we cannot care only about ourselves, our own well-being.

We have a responsibility for the well-being of others, the protection and well-being of their lives. Our actions cannot be selfish; we must also take into account the needs of our fellow human beings. If everyone only concentrated on themselves, we would cease to function as a healthy society and would be doomed to destruction. This has been proven many times throughout the history of mankind, especially in the 20th century.

Last but not least, Rosh Hashanah’s third universal message is the recognition of the kingdom of God, the recognition that

history is not a series of random events, and even though it is not a sequence of events that can be accurately predicted, behind each event, you can clearly notice the hand of Providence, the divine plan, which, albeit often with detours, basically steers the course of history in one direction.

It has been a difficult but interesting year. Raise your hand if this time last year if you predicted what would happen.

The coronavirus epidemic, the U.S. and Israeli presidential elections, Palestinian aggression in Gaza, the chaos left after the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the refugee crisis, growing antisemitism around the world, and natural disasters — all of this made sure that we are continuously on alert. 

We at Neokohn continued trying to report in a fair way this past year, according to the Hebrew calendar, to offer a broader perspective and a narrative that can be said to be unique in the Hungarian news space; meanwhile, many changes have taken place in our own editorial office.

We have known and remembered since Heraclitus that change is the only permanent thing. And change is not always bad, nor are we afraid of it, because it brings new things, and everything new is a new opportunity.

On behalf of myself and my colleagues, I can promise that in the year 5782, according to the Hebrew calculation, there will be even more news, even-more marked opinions and even more professionalism. We know that we do not direct the flow of history, but we also know that our responsibility during the course of events cannot be ignored.

With this in mind, we wish our readers, both Jewish and non-Jewish, a happy and sweet New Year, with a traditional greeting used at this time: May it be the will of our God for your year to be sweet and good!

The first Hungarian Hasidic folk song was released – Neokohn