When Moments Belong to the Light
Watching Live From Hostage Square
Weeks after the Berlin Wall fell, Leonard Bernstein stood before the Brandenburg Gate and lifted his baton.
He conducted Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, changing one word—Freude (“joy”) to Freiheit (“freedom”)—and music turned into witness.
I was eleven in 1989, when the wall came down, and that night at dinner, the television stayed on.
Tom Brokaw’s watery eyes and cars streaming through the breach—their westbound headlights casting beams across the gray Berlin sky, as if holding back the dark.
But that night already belonged to the light.
Millions exhaling decades of division.
Thirty-six years later, across continents and time zones, we watch Instagram Live from Hostage Square in Tel Aviv.
Light flickers from phone screens, and faces glow in the darkness.
Hope swells in the soul of our nation.
This night may be only a flicker, but it too belongs to the light.