Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski z”tl

Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski zt”l, a renowned Torah scholar, psychologist and the author of some 90 books, was niftar on Sunday in Israel at the age of 90. He had been battling COVID-19, according to Yeshiva World News.

“I mourn the sad passing of Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski, who was a source of much inspiration to me and many thousands of others,” said Chief Rabbi of Britain Ephraim Mirvis. “Acclaimed across the Jewish world, Rabbi Twerski blended Chassidic wisdom and academic expertise with warm humanity.”

He spent much of his professional life in Pittsburgh, where he helped found the Gateway Rehabilitation Center in 1972. He sought to break down stigmas about abuse, addiction and mental-health issues, especially within insular segments of the Orthodox community.

He lived briefly in New York before moving to Israel in his later years.

Among his many books, two were created with Charles Schultz, author of the “Peanuts” comic strip. Shultz was “one of the most intuitive psychologists in the United States,” Rabbi Twerski said.

In 1996, he wrote “The Shame Borne in Silence,” about domestic violence.

Rabbi Twerski “was a great believer that there was no contraction” between his Orthodox faith and his scientific work, said Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, a psychologist and former executive vice president of the Orthodox Union.

 Rabbi Twerski opened an education conference hosted at the Young Israel of Woodmere in 2015 and attended by 700 by suggesting that the way to fulfill the mitzvah to love and revere and fear Hashem is by meditating “on the wonders of creation” and seeing “the infinite wisdom in the works of creation.”