“The once-born are people who sail through life without experiencing anything that shatters or complicates their faith. They may have financial reverses, problems with their children, and so forth, but they always feel that a kindly God is controlling things. Twice-born souls, on the other hand, are people who lose their faith and then regain it, but their new faith is very different from the one they lost. Instead of seeing a world flooded with sunshine as the once-born always do, they see a world where the sun struggles to come out after a storm but always manages to reappear. Theirs is a less cheerful, less confident, more realistic outlook. God is no longer the parent who keeps them safe and dry. He is the power that enables them to keep going in a stormy and dangerous world. And like the bone that breaks and heals stronger at the broken place, like the string that is stronger where it broke and was knotted, it is a stronger faith than it was before, because it has learned it can survive the loss of faith.”
Rabbi Harold Kushner
King Edward Street Chapel 