Remembering the Great Rabbi and Psychiatrist Abraham Twerski

Among those who have lost their lives to the coronavirus since the year began was Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski, the scion of a major ḥasidic dynasty, the author of some 80 books, and a psychiatrist who ran a world-famous addiction clinic. Twerski, who died in Jerusalem at the age of ninety, developed a particular worldview that drew on impressive knowledge of the Jewish tradition, the practical wisdom of the twelve-step program, and the simple life lessons of the comic strip Peanuts. But Twerski’s path was not an easy or foreordained one, note Edward Reichman and Menachem Butler, pointing to his correspondence with the renowned Israeli halakhic authority Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky, in which he sought advice about whether to pursue a career as a physician. In 1959, Twerski’s graduation from medical school was the subject of a short profile in Time magazine, which Reichman and Butler have uncovered: