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Abraham Twerski, Who Merged 12 Steps and the Torah, Dies at 90
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Dave P.
Feb 17, 2021, 4:41:48 AM2/17/21
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Abraham Twerski, Who Merged 12 Steps and the Torah, Dies at 90
By Joseph Berger, 2/6/21, New York Times
Abraham J. Twerski was an Orthodox rabbi, the descendant of
several Hasidic dynasties. Yet he was also a psychiatrist and
a respected authority on addiction who was drawn to the 12-step
approach central to Alcoholics Anonymous, a program whose
origins are Christian.
“He discovered in A.A. meetings the kind of sincere & even
selfless fellow-feeling that was often absent in synagogues,”
Andrew Heinze wrote in a 1999 profile of Rabbi Twerski for
Judaism, the quarterly mag of the American Jewish Congress.
“He was moved by the example of men & women who would willingly
be awakened in the middle of the night to go out & help a
fellow alcoholic.”
He saw no contradiction between the 12 steps & his belief in
the laws of Torah, acc. to his granddaughter Chaya Waldman.
“The 12 steps may have been created by Christian believers,”
she said, “but it was about spirituality, surrendering to a
higher power, & that is synonymous with Judaism.”
Twerski melded an eclectic menu of treatments in his work as
director of psychiatry at St. Francis Hospital in Pittsburgh.
The Gateway Rehab Ctr, which he founded, was named one of the
top 12 rehab clinics in the US by Forbes mag in 1987. He also
wrote 80 books, many on Jewish topics but many others on
addictive thinking & the addictive personality, all of which
enhanced his int'l rep as an authority on addiction.
He died on Jan. 31 at a hospital in Jerusalem, the city where
he had lived full time for the past five years. He was 90.
A grandson, Chaim Twerski, said the cause was complications
of Covid-19. A devotee of the comic strip “Peanuts,” Twerski
sought out its creator, Charles Schulz, in an attempt to broaden
people’s thinking about issues like alcoholism & psychology.
Their collaboration resulted in a series of self-help books
illustrated with pictures of Snoopy, Charlie Brown & other
Peanuts characters, with titles such as “Waking Up Just in
Time: A Therapist Shows How to Use the Twelve-Steps Approach
to Life’s Ups & Downs” (1990).
What distinguished Twerski from many other Orthodox therapists
was his willingness to look outside his community. In one of
his works, “The Shame Borne in Silence: Spouse Abuse in the
Jewish Community” (1996), he called attention to a problem
that many Hasidic leaders argued should be handled discreetly
within the insular community, without informing the police or
outside authorities.
Abraham Joshua Heschel Twerski was born on Oct. 6, 1930, in
Milwaukee, where his parents had immigrated in 1927 after
leaving Russia. His father, Jacob, the 6th-gen descendant of
the grand rabbi of Chernobyl, was the rabbi of Beth Jehudah
Synagogue in Milwaukee. His mother, Devorah Leah (Halberstam)
Twerski, was the daughter of a grand rabbi of Bobov, one of
the largest Hasidic sects.
Abraham was the 3rd of 5 brothers, each of whom became a rabbi
but was given an advanced secular education as well, earning
college & grad degrees, something very few Hasidim strive for.
He attended public schools in Milwaukee, & in 2nd grade acted
in an Xmas play. When his mother visited the school, the
principal thought she was there to complain; instead, she told
the principal that if her son’s Jewish upbringing was not
strong enough to weather a 2nd-grade play, it was his family
that had failed him.
He received his rabbinical ordination in 1951 thru the Hebrew
Theo. College in Chicago (now in Skokie, Ill.). While working
with his father’s synagogue as an asst. rabbi, he relished
counseling others but realized that the members of the congre-
gation would always turn to his father for advice about their
most intimate personal problems. He decided, he explained in a
1988 interview with the National Council of Jewish Women, that
by studying psychiatry he might enhance his own talent.
“So I went to med school to become a psychiatrist to do what
I wanted to do as a rabbi,” he said.
He received his med degree at Marquette U. in Milwaukee, a
Jesuit institution. When the actor Danny Thomas, a practicing
Catholic who had been raised in the Midwest, learned during a
lunch with Marquette officials that a student who was an Orthodox
rabbi needed up to $4,000 to complete his med studies, he told
the officials, “He’s got it,” and made good on his pledge.
Twerski trained as a psychiatrist at the Univ of Pittsburgh.
He was supposed to take up a teaching position at the univ, but
after Sister Adele at St. Francis Hosp let him know of the
hospital’s needs for a stronger mental health program, he
became its director of psych. He stayed there for 20 years.
At the time, St. Francis might house about 30 for alco treatment,
all of them drying out for a few days before being sent home.
Twerski felt the hospital needed a longer-term clinic &, acc.
to an interview he gave to Pittsburgh Quarterly in 2008, told
the nuns, “We must build a place they can go for a few weeks
after they’ve dried out to give them a head start on sobriety.”
He was drawn to the idea of helping addicts promptly stop
drinking or abusing drugs, in contrast to the more classic
psychoanalytic approach of having them explore the roots of
their need for those substances. He found that this tougher
approach accorded with the Orthodox approach to combating the
“evil inclination,” as well as A.A. tenets. But he applied
other approaches as well, relying on what he felt each
individual could tolerate.
He is survived by his wife, Gail (Bessler) Twerski,
a psychologist; 4 kids, Yitzchak, Benzion, Shlomo & Sara;
2 bro's, Aaron, a prof of law at Brooklyn Law School, & Michel,
grand rabbi of the Hornosteipler Hasidim of Milwaukee;
28 grandkids; & dozens of great-grands. His first wife,
Goldie (Flusberg) Twerski, died of cancer in 1995.
Rabbi Twerski’s work with Charles M. Schulz was a particular
highlight of his writing career, though he noted in 1999 that
Mr. Schulz denied there was anything particularly psychological
about “Peanuts.” “I’ve often talked with Schulz,” he said, “and
I’ve pointed out to him the insights in his strip. And he said
to me, ‘If I saw in my strips everything that you see, I would
be paralyzed and unable to draw.’”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/06/science/abraham-j-twerski-dead-coronavirus.html
By Joseph Berger, 2/6/21, New York Times
Abraham J. Twerski was an Orthodox rabbi, the descendant of
several Hasidic dynasties. Yet he was also a psychiatrist and
a respected authority on addiction who was drawn to the 12-step
approach central to Alcoholics Anonymous, a program whose
origins are Christian.
“He discovered in A.A. meetings the kind of sincere & even
selfless fellow-feeling that was often absent in synagogues,”
Andrew Heinze wrote in a 1999 profile of Rabbi Twerski for
Judaism, the quarterly mag of the American Jewish Congress.
“He was moved by the example of men & women who would willingly
be awakened in the middle of the night to go out & help a
fellow alcoholic.”
He saw no contradiction between the 12 steps & his belief in
the laws of Torah, acc. to his granddaughter Chaya Waldman.
“The 12 steps may have been created by Christian believers,”
she said, “but it was about spirituality, surrendering to a
higher power, & that is synonymous with Judaism.”
Twerski melded an eclectic menu of treatments in his work as
director of psychiatry at St. Francis Hospital in Pittsburgh.
The Gateway Rehab Ctr, which he founded, was named one of the
top 12 rehab clinics in the US by Forbes mag in 1987. He also
wrote 80 books, many on Jewish topics but many others on
addictive thinking & the addictive personality, all of which
enhanced his int'l rep as an authority on addiction.
He died on Jan. 31 at a hospital in Jerusalem, the city where
he had lived full time for the past five years. He was 90.
A grandson, Chaim Twerski, said the cause was complications
of Covid-19. A devotee of the comic strip “Peanuts,” Twerski
sought out its creator, Charles Schulz, in an attempt to broaden
people’s thinking about issues like alcoholism & psychology.
Their collaboration resulted in a series of self-help books
illustrated with pictures of Snoopy, Charlie Brown & other
Peanuts characters, with titles such as “Waking Up Just in
Time: A Therapist Shows How to Use the Twelve-Steps Approach
to Life’s Ups & Downs” (1990).
What distinguished Twerski from many other Orthodox therapists
was his willingness to look outside his community. In one of
his works, “The Shame Borne in Silence: Spouse Abuse in the
Jewish Community” (1996), he called attention to a problem
that many Hasidic leaders argued should be handled discreetly
within the insular community, without informing the police or
outside authorities.
Abraham Joshua Heschel Twerski was born on Oct. 6, 1930, in
Milwaukee, where his parents had immigrated in 1927 after
leaving Russia. His father, Jacob, the 6th-gen descendant of
the grand rabbi of Chernobyl, was the rabbi of Beth Jehudah
Synagogue in Milwaukee. His mother, Devorah Leah (Halberstam)
Twerski, was the daughter of a grand rabbi of Bobov, one of
the largest Hasidic sects.
Abraham was the 3rd of 5 brothers, each of whom became a rabbi
but was given an advanced secular education as well, earning
college & grad degrees, something very few Hasidim strive for.
He attended public schools in Milwaukee, & in 2nd grade acted
in an Xmas play. When his mother visited the school, the
principal thought she was there to complain; instead, she told
the principal that if her son’s Jewish upbringing was not
strong enough to weather a 2nd-grade play, it was his family
that had failed him.
He received his rabbinical ordination in 1951 thru the Hebrew
Theo. College in Chicago (now in Skokie, Ill.). While working
with his father’s synagogue as an asst. rabbi, he relished
counseling others but realized that the members of the congre-
gation would always turn to his father for advice about their
most intimate personal problems. He decided, he explained in a
1988 interview with the National Council of Jewish Women, that
by studying psychiatry he might enhance his own talent.
“So I went to med school to become a psychiatrist to do what
I wanted to do as a rabbi,” he said.
He received his med degree at Marquette U. in Milwaukee, a
Jesuit institution. When the actor Danny Thomas, a practicing
Catholic who had been raised in the Midwest, learned during a
lunch with Marquette officials that a student who was an Orthodox
rabbi needed up to $4,000 to complete his med studies, he told
the officials, “He’s got it,” and made good on his pledge.
Twerski trained as a psychiatrist at the Univ of Pittsburgh.
He was supposed to take up a teaching position at the univ, but
after Sister Adele at St. Francis Hosp let him know of the
hospital’s needs for a stronger mental health program, he
became its director of psych. He stayed there for 20 years.
At the time, St. Francis might house about 30 for alco treatment,
all of them drying out for a few days before being sent home.
Twerski felt the hospital needed a longer-term clinic &, acc.
to an interview he gave to Pittsburgh Quarterly in 2008, told
the nuns, “We must build a place they can go for a few weeks
after they’ve dried out to give them a head start on sobriety.”
He was drawn to the idea of helping addicts promptly stop
drinking or abusing drugs, in contrast to the more classic
psychoanalytic approach of having them explore the roots of
their need for those substances. He found that this tougher
approach accorded with the Orthodox approach to combating the
“evil inclination,” as well as A.A. tenets. But he applied
other approaches as well, relying on what he felt each
individual could tolerate.
He is survived by his wife, Gail (Bessler) Twerski,
a psychologist; 4 kids, Yitzchak, Benzion, Shlomo & Sara;
2 bro's, Aaron, a prof of law at Brooklyn Law School, & Michel,
grand rabbi of the Hornosteipler Hasidim of Milwaukee;
28 grandkids; & dozens of great-grands. His first wife,
Goldie (Flusberg) Twerski, died of cancer in 1995.
Rabbi Twerski’s work with Charles M. Schulz was a particular
highlight of his writing career, though he noted in 1999 that
Mr. Schulz denied there was anything particularly psychological
about “Peanuts.” “I’ve often talked with Schulz,” he said, “and
I’ve pointed out to him the insights in his strip. And he said
to me, ‘If I saw in my strips everything that you see, I would
be paralyzed and unable to draw.’”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/06/science/abraham-j-twerski-dead-coronavirus.html
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