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ATHENS - The song began low and sweet. It was only later that the tears joined in.
For the first few words, the crowd struggled to catch up, but soon the sound was carrying across the beach, across the Saronic Sea, across history. In the dusk of the summer night, the voices rose until the words hung somewhere between the pale half-moon in the sky and the dozens of flags bearing the Star of David.
Men wept openly. Women lifted their children so they could better see, and remember, the history in the moment. A flag made its first trip up the center pole of a medal ceremony. It was a wonderfully sweet image, perhaps the best of these Olympics. It was a snapshot of charm and chill-bumps, of absolute joy amid the tearful history of a nation.
Finally, Israel had won a gold medal.
Had its national anthem, Hatikvah, ever sounded quite as wonderful?
For 52 years, Israeli athletes have waited to sing this song. For so long, a nation has waited to hear it played in the name of an Olympic victory. Finally, it was playing for Gal Fridman, a greyhound-thin windsurfer who had delivered the first gold medal in history to his nation.
Fridman stepped on the center platform and, at 8:04, the music began to play. The version played was a bit rushed by normal standards - there has only been a half-century to rehearse - and between the speed of the music and the volume of the singers, Fridman had to struggle to keep up.
Still, for an Israeli, the Olympics had never sounded quite as harmonious.
"You had a whole nation running after him, blowing with their mouths to have wind in his sails," said Israeli ambassador Rav Aviran, who then blew hard twice to demonstrate. Whooof. Whooof. "It didn't show it on TV, but that's what happened."
Said Fridman: "It felt as though the entire country was pushing me."
Throughout its Olympic history, the turmoil of Israel has echoed the nation's history. Even in this Olympics, an Iranian judo competitor, two-time world champion Arash Miresmaeili, refused to compete against an Israeli opponent. It was a reminder, in some ways, that the world has not moved on from the echoes of the Black September gunfire of 32 years ago.
Fridman, 28, was born three years after the massacre that killed 11 Israeli athletes and coaches, but like most Israeli children, it has been with him throughout his life. Even now, when athletes depart for an international competition, they gather at the memorial in Tel Aviv and remember.
One of the first stops Fridman will make when he returns home, he said, is to the memorial. He will bring his gold medal along.
"I want to bring them the honor that is theirs," Fridman said. "I want to show it to them, to show them they are with us, to show we have moved on and that we are winning."
In the United States, in a modest home in Shaker Heights, Ohio, Ben Berger was pleased to hear the news of an Israeli gold medal.
"Windsurfing?" Berger said, laughing softly. "That's funny."
Ah, but when a nation has never won gold before, the direction from which it comes hardly matters. Berger, 87, knows that. Thirty-two years ago, his son David lost his life in the name of the Israeli flag.
David Berger was one of the 11. He was born and raised in Shaker Heights, and he went to Columbia. After graduation, however, he moved to Israel to train so he could compete in the '72 Olympics as a weightlifter.
On the night of Sept. 5, terrorists scaled the walls, killed two athletes and took the rest hostage. Nineteen hours later, everyone was dead. The terrorists tossed a grenade into the helicopter where David lay, and he died of smoke inhalation. His father has never completely healed.
"It's always hard," Berger said softly. "During the Olympics, it's particularly hard."
For years, Berger and the families of other victims have pushed for an Olympic moment of recognition for the slain athletes. It hasn't happened. Berger says Olympic officials prefer to sweep bad memories under the rug and move on.
You might hope the victory by Fridman would grant Berger a bit of ease. It doesn't. But he knows his son would have sung along.
"David would have been pleased," Berger said. "I won't say that he was a particular fan of windsurfing, but he would have been happy to see an Israeli win.
"The whole country will be happy. He (Fridman) will be a hero. To us, it's a minor sport. To Israel, it will be major."
Already, Fridman has been named his nation's athlete of the year. Already, he has been inducted into its sports Hall of Fame. And that was just for winning a bronze in Atlanta. Now that he has won a gold, Fridman will be an icon.
How special was this? Over the past 12 summer Olympics, the United States has 521 gold medals; Israel now has one.
In a small stadium on a friendly beach where politics seemed a world away, it was easy to understand the smile on the face of Zvi Varshaviak, the president of the Israeli Olympic committee.
"How do I feel?" he said, raising his arm high above his head. "It's up in the sky. They wanted to kill us, but we are alive. And we have the gold medal."
And so the fans sang and danced and waved the flag. When the anthem was complete, they rushed from the stands, and an impossible number of them, perhaps as many as three dozen, wedged onto the platform with Fridman. They called his name, and children reached out to touch his face. He was swarmed, thanked, blessed as he moved around the stadium.
"It is the reaction of a small country that is not used to the wonder of gold," said Alex Gilady, an IOC member from Israel.
Finally, 45 minutes later, Fridman stood by the water with a half-dozen reporters, his flag still draped around his shoulders.
"If you want to fight someone, fight him in sports to see who is better," Fridman said. "This is our job as athletes, to show the other side of Israeli people. All the people I know want peace."
On a night when the music rose softly into the air, when no one around hated anyone because of the symbols on a flag, it was possible to believe the music might last forever.
What more can you ask of an Olympics than that?