For the past thousands of years, at every traditional Jewish wedding, as the bride and groom stand under the Chupah blissfully in love and gazing adoringly at each other, the Rabbi (or other distinguished guest) makes seven special blessings in honor of the new couple.

One of them goes as follows:

"Bring great joy to these loving friends,

As You gave great joy to Your creations in the Garden of Eden,

Blessed are You, G-d, who gives joy to the bride and groom."

At first glance, sounds very nice, even moving.

But let's give a closer look.

"Bring great joy" - who could argue with that?

"To these loving friends" – a very beautiful message, the bride and groom are beloved friends above all.

"As You gave great joy to Your creations in the Garden of Eden" - HUH, say what? Did I read that correctly? Joy in the Garden of Eden?!?

As this week’s Parsha spells out in  detail, the Garden of Eden episode is an unmitigated disaster. Eve basically feeds Adam poison, he blames her for his mistake and they get thrown out of paradise. He then is cursed that he has to work "by the sweat of his brow" and she gets the joys of labor pains. This is a blessing?

Some commentaries go out of their way to explain that the blessing refers to the time period in the Garden, before they sinned (which was all of a couple of hours). They say the blessing is that the bride and groom should always be unique and special in each others’ eyes, as if there is no one else in the world. Just like by Adam and Eve there was literally no one else, this is how the couple should always feel about each other.

While that is certainly an important and beautiful thought, it seems to me that the Rabbis who wrote this blessing may be teaching us an even more fundamentally important lesson.

Sure Adam and Eve royally mess up in the Garden of Eden. But what happens next? Do they fight? Divorce? And what is G-d's reaction, does He give up on them?

Not at all. Immediately after the Torah tells us the story of the sin, we are told how Adam acknowledges the special role of his beloved wife, which the Talmud expounds to mean that she is to be treasured, loved, and spared pain. We are then told how G-d lovingly clothes Adam and Eve, and the Talmud expounds how they are not immediately chased out of the Garden of Eden, but are first given the precious gift of the Sabbath day of rest.

Perhaps we are giving the bride and groom an important lesson. Yes, your lives are likely to be more like life out of Eden than in it. But that’s the point. It is easy to gaze lovingly on your wedding day, but far more important is to keep the faith and love after the first squabble. G-d doesn't give up on us when we sin, we shouldn't give up on spouses either. Wherever we are we can create Eden. The real love begins when the Honeymoon ends. Adam and Eve kept the love going, so can you.

This is a lesson for our relationships with G-d as well. The recent holiday season was a time of great joy and closeness to G-d. The real challenge is keeping the flame alive through the cold, dreary winter.

Mark Twain got it right. He ends off his humorous, yet moving description of the Garden of Eden story, years "After the Fall," from "enchantingly beautiful" Garden, as follows:

"Adam standing at Eve's Grave.

'ADAM: Wheresoever she was, THERE was Eden'."