Custom alias outside .zshrc but ZSH_CUSTOM doesn't work in kali

Question

For reference this is not a duplicate: I reviewed other Q and A like this but it doesn't work for me.

Background:

I'm using Kali in parallels.

To keep my .zshrc file tidy I decided to mkdir my_zsh_aliases then added my_aliases.zsh and it all looks like this:

---

.zshrc

ZSH_CUSTOM=~/my_zsh_aliases

and inside the my_zsh_aliases directory there's a file called: my_aliases.zsh

alias ping='ping -c 4'

alias knock='python3 /home/parallels/Tools/knock/knockpy.py'

---

For some reason it doesn't work even after reloading the shell (reboot) & source ~/.zshrc command.

The shell doesn't recognize knock as a command

EDIT: Including a link to the Doc - about Customization for reference.