"The King desires life"

The King desires life

On Rosh Hashanah, one week before everything changed,
at the heart of the prayers for the feast,
Three words sprang from the siddur and have never left me:
“Zochrenu lachaim, Melekh chafets bachaim.”

That wasn't an idea,
but a feeling.

As if something, from the inside,
reminded me
that life is never a given,
and that the choice has to be made again every day.

Then war broke out.
The air filled with fear, death, and uncertainty.

And in those days, every morning,
These three words kept coming back to me like an anchor.

They were calling on me to choose life.
To choose the good.

To live this day as if it were the first,
and as if he were the last one.