A Second Marriage

I heard a wonderful quote over shabbos (wrongfully attributed, but Google fixed that...):

"A second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience."
-- Samuel Johnson

The idea behind this quote extends far beyond the context of marriage. Very often in life, we tend to give up when things don't go the right way. Whether it's in our relationship with G-d, others, or (especially?) ourselves, we feel that once the trust underlying the relationship is betrayed, the relationship is doomed, or irreparable. But the fact is, G-d gives us second chances, other people give us second chances, and we can give ourselves second chances. As I spoke about in my Sukkos dvar Torah (which I still have to write up, but I think it's perhaps the best dvar Torah I've ever given), the idea behind Sukkos is that even אחר החטא, even after sinning, G-d is still there ready to have a relationship with us. The ענני הכבוד can come back, even after something as devastating as the חטא העגל, as soon as we begin work to build the משכן.

Someone told me about a marriage workshop run by a husband and wife team. The wife starts off by introducing her husband as, "This is John, my eighth husband." Everyone is shocked - this woman's been married eight times, and she's the one running a marriage workshop?!" But then she continues - "I love him more than John my seventh husband, and even more than John my sixth husband, and ..."

We have multiple opportunities to create new relationships. It's important that we don't let our burnout from previous experience eclipse our hope for the future.