An Interview With Rabbi Avraham Twerski O”BM

We present an interview with Rabbi Dr. Avraham Twerski O”BM courtesy of Rabbi Chaim Dalfin from his book, Conversation with the Rebbe, JEP 1996.

Interview with
Rabbi Dr. Abraham J. Twerski
Rabbi, Psychiatrist, founder and director of Gateway Rehabilitation Center
Recovery and Torah
New York Needs A Frum Psychiatrist/ Jewish Meditation/ Cherkasser Chasidic Dynasty/ Controlling Anger/ Tanya and Psychology/ Mesilas Yisharim

CD A little about your contact and relationship with the Rebbe? The Previous Rebbe?

RT I was by this Rebbe several times, relatively short visits. The first time was when I was a resident in Psychiatry, at which time the Rebbe strongly urged me to move to New York after I finished.

CD Where were you doing the residence?

RT In Pittsburgh. He said there were many problems for which a psychiatrist was needed for people who were Bnei Torah, and there was danger in sending them to secular psychiatrists, and my services would be sorely needed in New York. I told the Rebbe that I could not see myself surviving as a unique being. To be the only person to turn to in a city like New York would have been crushing. No day, no night, no Shabbos, no Yom Tov, no nothing.

The Rebbe sort of smiled, then he agreed…

That was around 1961 or 1962. Several times I met the Rebbe very, very briefly. The Rebbe send me in a proposal to work on a system of meditation that would be applicable for Bnei Torah. He sent me a paper on meditation in English in which he crossed out parts that he thought were inappropriate, and had written his own comments in the margins, and asked me to develop it. Unfortunately, I was never into meditation, and I kept on putting it off. When I started to look around for it, I wasn’t able to find it. I remember that the parts which were crossed out as inappropriate had to do with the secular and oriental forms of meditation. He saved the good things, taking out what was good [in the paper], and his comments had to do with what to substitute for the omissions, etc., but unfortunately I lost it.

CD You mentioned that you never had an interest in meditation as a field. Could you explain why?

RT The truth is that I’m not far from it, because many years I worked quite intensively treating patients with hypnosis, and had phenomenal results. As my time got more involved in treating alcoholics and addicts, I essentially left general psychiatry, and I didn’t do anything more with hypnosis.

Hypnosis and meditation are quite close. What I still now do is a kind of meditation or self-hypnosis, not having anything to do with the oriental techniques. These are relaxation exercises, and I’m fortunate to be able to go into a kind of trance, and take myself back in time to relive very pleasant scenes of childhood.

It’s very fascinating. It beats valium, because it doesn’t interfere with the function of the brain. I’ll slip back in an easy chair, close my eyes, and allow myself to drift back in time. I’ll go back to age 10 and see myself in the country, and for ten or fifteen minutes allow myself to relive the experiences of swimming and playing ball, playing monopoly, reading piles of comic books, all the fun things we did as kids.

I do this a few times a week. It is a kind of meditation, but different than disassociating myself from the world and becoming absorbed in whatever, which I understand has something to do with the other meditation. It is a kind of meditation though, and I strongly advocate it. If I find the other paper on meditation I may very well try to adapt it, do something with it.

CD Is there a point of contact between traditional chasidic meditation and what you do?

RT Once I get into this I’ll take a closer look at the various traditional forms of concentration and meditation. My guess is that they’re quite close, but sometimes in things that are close, the difference between Gehenim and Gan Eden is a hair’s breadth. There can be a very small distinction between what is appropriate and what can be misleading. If I did anything in this field I would take great caution, run it before some of the authoritative Torah scholars.

I want to tell you something which does not have to do with me personally. When people used to go from Pittsburgh to the Rebbe, especially to receive sweet cake on Hoshanah Rabbah, they would come back and tell me that they requested an extra piece of cake for Dr. Twersky. The Rebbe would give them the extra piece. They walked away, and then the Rebbe would call them back and give them another piece, saying, “and this is for Rabbi Twersky. That’s by the way.

I went to the Rebbe a number of times to get dollars for tzedaka and then I think I realized what was behind that. I come across the dollar sometimes. I’m going to put it away of course, and I say to myself, “The Rebbe gave me this dollar to give charity. But if I give charity, then I lose the Rebbe’s dollar.” So I give a different dollar to charity, to exchange it. One dollar of the Rebbe’s I think I’ve exchanged a hundred times. I think that may have been his intention.

CD You go back to the Cherkasser Dynasty.

RT Our dynasty goes back to the Cherkasser, then to the Mittler Rebbe. Of course, the Cherkasser had two years after his wedding where his father-in-law, the Alter Rebbe, supported his learning.

CD Do you possess any family traditions concerning the succession of the Chabad Dynasty, that is, the question between the Mittler Rebbe and Reb Aharon of Staroselye after the passing of the Alter Rebbe.

RT Reb Aharon’s writings are very dear to us, we learn their chasidus, but there is no question that the chain follows the Mittler Rebbe.

I’ll tell you an interesting story that I don’t know how many people know. It came down to us in the family. It’s an indication of how sensitive you have to be in the service of Hashem.

The Cherkasser was a young man when he was supported by the Alter Rebbe, maybe 16 when he was married, whatever. At one time, the Alter Rebbe was going to say a chasidic discourse, so he sat the Cherkasser at his right hand. Before I continue with this story let me tell you another story how the Alter Rebbe chose him as his son-in-law.

This is a story of Reb Boruch of Mezbuz who came to the Chernobler Magid, and said he needed a match for his daughter. The Chernobler Magid said that the boys were asleep, and that he should go in and take a look. Rabbi Boruch walked through and placed his hand on each boy’s forehead. When he came to the Cherkasser he stopped and said, “Oy, this is a warm little head! This one is for me.” The Chernobler Magid told him, “The Litvak (Alter Rebbe) has already grabbed him.” A famous story.

Getting back to the first story, the Alter Rebbe was about to say this discourse, and sat the Cherkasser at his Right hand. After he finished he asked him to repeat it back to him. The Cherkasser said “I didn’t hear.” The Alter Rebbe said, “Weren’t you sitting here?” He said, “What I don’t have permission to hear I don’t hear.” The Alter Rebbe told him to go back to Chernobyl and ask his father for permission to receive from him. He left and came back with permission. You can see from what little is left of the Cherkasser’s writings that it totally resembles the Alter Rebbe’s Likutei Torah. You see that he was heavily influenced, but the lesson is, “What could have gone wrong had he listened to the Alter Rebbe?” The answer is that by these spiritual giants, if there are two paths in the service of Hashem, both completely holy, holy of holies, nevertheless to change one for another cannot be done without permission. It’s not a play-toy. You don’t do things just because you want to.

CD In many of your books you write about your father. I understand he was a Rebbe. Did he have a relationship with the earlier leaders of Lubavitch?

RT I couldn’t tell you. Correspondence I’m not aware of. There couldn’t have been much of a relationship because he came to the United States as a young man. I don’t think he as 30 yet. I know he was by the Previous Rebbe several times in New York. One interesting thing. My oldest brother, of blessed memory, was thinking of going to college. Back around 1942 it was considered a radical move for a Chasidishe Bochur to go to college. He went in to the Previous Rebbe to ask. He heard him out and said, “Do you have a father?” That was the answer, do what your father tells you.

It reminds me of a similar story. The family custom is that girls begin lighting Shabbos Candles at Bas Mitzvah, and the light two candles. When my granddaughter was nine year old and all the girls in her class were lighting Shabbos Candles, and she asked me what to do. I said, “Why don’t you write to the Rebbe and ask him.” She sat down, with a little bit of help she wrote a letter in English, “Dear Rebbe, all the girls in my class light Shabbos Candles, and my father says that in our family, girls wait until they are 12. What should I do?”

Sometimes you had to wait weeks for an answer. Two days later, here’s a letter. The Rebbe answered in Hebrew, “There is no question here. [It is proper] to listen to the grandfather.” I saw that she wanted to light Shabbos Candles like the other kids, so I told her to go ahead!

CD I understand you used to give a class in Tanya. In your work, do you find the insight of the Tanya applicable for psychiatrists, psychologists, other people in mental health?

RT I gave this class before morning prayers and it’s all on tape, but it’s a very poor quality tape. That was the first time I gave a class in Tanya. G-d willing, I’ll do another series with better recording. There were insights into Tanya we were able to get. Of course there are other commentaries. There is the Rebbe’s commentary, you have Adin Steinsalz, but still, every time you approach it you get new insights.

The Tanya is very much applicable to all. The first thing is that psychiatry and psychology have a very narrow outlook. Mental health professionals have taken the position that a person’s religious, spiritual life is out of their area. They don’t deal with it. That’s at least halfway decent. The psychoanalytic people used to regularly attack religion. Now it’s more neutral, but what they don’t realize is that just as there are essential vitamins, and without them there are symptoms of a deficiency disease, there are essential vitamins for the soul.

What a person needs to realize is that he has a soul, that’s number one, and this applies to a Non-Jew as well. There is a soul, and the soul has a purpose given to it by its Creator. If we don’t apply this nutrition, the Torah being food for the soul, as explained in chasidus, then there is going to be a deficiency syndrome. The symptom is that the individual will feel ill-at-ease and not know what he’s missing. The problem is that when you don’t know what you are missing you go for all kinds of things. [A person can say to himself that] maybe food will help him feel better, maybe drugs, alcohol, money, pride, ego, whatever. It’s a bottomless pit, because they’re neglecting the fact that there is something which the soul needs.

My feeling is that the psychologist or psychotherapist needs to be able to simply confidently tell someone that they have definite spiritual nutritional needs. Not to impose one’s own perspectives on the client, but to make him aware that he has to deal with these needs. One thing that has been very easy for me to do is working with the alcoholic, because there it is recognized, and stated very clearly in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, that the problem is that physical needs were placed before spiritual needs. There, the key realization is that one has fallen into this bottomless pit through neglecting spiritual needs.

For the Jew, who has a Neshomah and who has to be supplied with the spiritual needs of the Neshomah, of course the Tanya’s approach is significant. If one says he favors a Musar approach, OK. If you really take a look at it “These and these are the words of the living

G-d”, they’re saying the same using different words. Yes, there are some fine differences.

I do use the things I learn from Tanya in working with clients, especially what is so important, the concept that the brain rules over the heart. We’re living in the king of culture where it’s the reverse, the emotions are everything. We live by emotions, and Freud said the whole business of behavior is a question of which emotion is going to win out, a conflict of emotions. No one bothers to deal with the fact that the intellect is, or should be, dominant over the emotions. This concept is very important in helping guide people. Not that I have to tell people what there brain should tell them. I can leave them the freedom to decide. They have to realize that it’s the brain. They’ve got to put the brain to use because everything else goes with emotions.

CD If someone is chemically dependant, does it help to tell him these things when you really have to deal with the chemical dependency?

RT You have to deal with the chemical dependency first, because as long as a brain is doused in either alcohol or any of the other drugs there’s no talking to it. First you have to get the individual chemically free. After he is chemically free then you have to start building up some kind of spiritual structure. And it works! CD Of course you know that I deal with psychologists and counselors. Initially they are very doubtful about Neshomah, spiritual things. They respond, “This is a chemical issue.”

RT Are you referring to counselors in chemical dependency fields?

CD No.

RT Well, we may be talking about biochemical diseases. That’s something else. Biochemical diseases are primarily depressive, where there seems to be no question at all tht in some people something has gone haywire with their biochemistry. In those situations they have to have correction with the medication. But, what happens is that the medication hopefully restores that to normal, and takes care of the first kind of depression. There are two types of depression, one that is not biochemical, which is due to lifelong dissatisfactions, a kind of grief reaction. Here medication won’t help. Medications only help for the type that is due to a biochemical quirk. In these situations you need the correction of medication so the individual will become normal. But then you’re dealing with a normal person who has needs for spiritual nutrition.

CD I heard a tape of a lecture you gave at the Nefesh conference in Florida this past December. You spoke about anger. The Alter Rebbe also speaks about anger, in Tanya. Do I understand you correctly that the initial impulse, the reflex of anger, that’s not within the human being’s control?
RT You have to get the whole context of the thing. Usually anger is a reflex — the feeling of anger is not within the individual’s control. What is within the individual’s control is how he reacts to the anger, and where he keeps it, or tries to keep it. However, even though it is not within the individual’s control, a person has the capacity to ask Hashem to relieve him of it, and if he feels that it is a severe annoyance and a severe hindrance, then he can ask Hashem to relieve him of it. Also, Hashem’s response may very well be, “You haven’t done your homework yet. I’m not going to intervene until you first do your thing. You first see to get rid of all the anger that you can. You work on that — you work on your character, to not react, your quality of humility that you shouldn’t feel so offended if your honor was hurt. You do your thing.

“Now, after you’ve done your homework and you’re still bothered by it, then come to me.” If you’re going to say, “No, I’m not going to do anything. I don’t like this anger — You get rid of it for me,” Hashem is going to say, “No way. You do your homework first. That’s part of the Avodah [Process of Divine Service].” It may well be that for reasons known to Hashem He wants us to continue to work on it. What I said was, that without Siyata Dishmaya [Divine help], just by normal human action, a person has no control over the reflex, initial feeling of anger. But if he does the right thing, and asks for Hashem’s kindness to remove it, it can be done.

CD And this holds equally for a Jew and a Gentile? RT The same would be true for a Jew and a Gentile. A Gentile can develop some very beautiful character qualities. for instance the Tanach teaches us how King Solomon prayed that the Non-Jews would also be able to come to the Temple and that their prayers and sacrifices should be accepted. So a Non-Jew also has access to Hashem’s Kindnesses.

CD The conceptual point about anger which is developed in the Tanya is the saying of our Sages, “Everyone who gets angry is like he is serving idols.”

RT What I said in my speech in Florida was that the Hebrew word for anger, Kaas, is one word that has three applications. It stands for the first reflex action, the retained anger, and the re-action to it. It can mean
any of these three. As far as the actual wording of this saying Maimonides says “Anyone who gets angry”, which is the expression of the Zohar. The Talmud has the saying, “Anyone who breaks things out of rage.”
In order to reconcile these two sayings, not to assume a difference of opinion without overwhelming evidence, it’s logical to say that the Zohar is talking about the same thing as the Talmud, an anger which is expressed. If you’re going to say that just because someone feels angry, that’s idol worship, that’s not the sense in which the word is used. That interpretation I cannot accept. The meaning is that if after he hits me in the face I go and pick up a chair and hit him over the head, that’s the anger that the Talmud is talking about and I think that’s what the Zohar and Maimonides are saying. It’s the final phase of anger, the reaction.

CD I’d like to go back to the Chassidic ideas of Cherkass. Is it more an intellectual or an emotional type of Chassidus? Is it in line with the intellectual Chabad Chassidus of the Alter Rebbe?

RT They’re in line as far as the emotions are concerned, and no one argues abut that. My grandfather, in Pele Yoetz , says that the problem of our generation, this is 110, 120 years ago, is that the intellect does not influence and control the emotions. It’s so true of our generation. The intellectual knowledge we’ve had surpasses anything that’s ever happened before, and people’s emotional character has not changed. The Alter Rebbe’s influence, of course, is on the “three primaries”, the qualities of Wisdom, Understanding and Knowledge [symbolized by the acronym Chabad].

The question is whether the approach of the Alter Rebbe is all right for everyone in general? Is it necessary to start with the intellect before working on the emotions? The Alter Rebbe clearly says that that’s the way it has to go. What were the feelings of the others, the Polish Rebbe’s. Some of them felt that this kind of intellectual work was not in everyone’s ability. Others thought it was not good to indulge too much in intellectual investigation of the Divine because it’s too close to philosophy and speculation, which can lead a person out of Judaism entirely. They believed in acceptance of guidance and practical character-building without the intellectual depth of the Chabad School.

They are two different paths in the service of Hashem. It’s implicit in the story I mentioned about the Cherkasser. He didn’t have permission to go from one to the other. But both are “the words of the living G-d.”

CD What I’m really asking is if the Cherkasser’s path was the same as the other Rebbes of Poland or to the Alter Rebbe.

RT The Cherkasser himself was much closer to the Alter Rebbe.

CD Today, is there such a thing as Cherkasser chasidus and Chasidim?

RT In the last generation there were still Hornstopler Chasidim (who come from the Cherkasser). Today there are remnants, what people tried to hold together. Many times today Chasidus is similarly the strengthening of a bond between people to continue to uphold their tradition practices, that help as a defense against the enormous moral and cultural corruption which is happening. That’s what I see of chasidus today.
Chabad still retains learning chasidus in a strong way. Other types of chasidus haven’t. They’ll look into chasidic books, which is very fine, but they haven’t made it a curriculum as has Chabad.

CD That’s something that has always bothered me. I don’t understand it. Shouldn’t chasidus be learned? RT They learn chasidus, but what happens is that the average Chasid, not a Chabadnik, will take Siduro Shel Shabos and learn it. It’s gorgeous stuff. He’ll take a Bnei Yisoschor, an Or Hamayim, a Kedushas Levi. He’ll learn Chasidus, but not as a formal course as Chabad has developed it. Would it have been better otherwise? I think so. I don’t know why it didn’t develop.

We have a young man, a Chabad Chasid, who comes over every Shabbos. We learn works of Chasidus, Siduro Shel Shabbos and these other works. I pointed out to him that he has his regular learning in Chabad. We have our study, but it’s not as organized. However, my great grandfather from Hornstopol, in a [since published] letter to my grandfather, writes that he should know Tanya from beginning to end. Tanya is the absolute foundation of everything.

CD Is it true that when people want to sit in your class in Tanya they have to go to the Mikvah first?

RT For Tanya you have to go to the Mikvah first. It’s a known thing that Zohar can’t be learned without Mikvah. I felt that this should be for Tanya also. Just as an example, I’d like to tell you some of the interesting insights that came up. The Alter Rebbe talks about [Chochmah and Binah] Wisdom and Understanding. Wisdom is the lightning bolt of insight, and Understanding is then the organizing force which develops this insight.

Generally, it’s pointed out that Wisdom itself is very difficult to identify, because almost the moment it comes in it’s organized into Understanding, and we have very little grasp of Wisdom itself. This is almost impossible to describe on tape, but maybe once I describe it you will get the hang of it. In medical practice, when we see a patient at the bedside, and suspect there is a problem with the brain, a tumor or anything else which may be responsible for his symptoms, the question is how to test? There are various ways of testing, reflexes, etc. There is also a test for stereognosis.

Let me show you. Close your eyes for a moment. I’m going to put something in your hand. Tell me what it is.

CD It’s a coin.

RT You want to tell me a little more? CD It’s a quarter.

RT The minute you felt this you felt it was a coin. I have given this to a patient and gotten the answer, “It’s hard…, and flat…, and it’s round.”

I say, “Well, what is it?”

He responds, “It’s hard and it’s flat and it’s round.”

He describes what he fells, but he is unable to take the sensations and organize them into a coin because that part of his brain has been interfered with.

When you felt it, you didn’t think, “It’s hard and flat and round, therefore it is a coin.” That didn’t even occur to you. Right way, instantaneously, you said, “It is a coin.” However, before you were able to conclude that it is a coin, your mind had to process that it’s hard and flat and round, therefore it is a coin.

CD How do we know that? Do we have proof.

RT The proof is that if there is a lesion in one part of the brain you never go beyond that. This means that the initial sensation is the component parts. Then the mind puts them together and organizes them. That’s Wisdom and Understanding. Wisdom is the initial impression and Understanding puts them together. The Zohar calls them “Two friends that never separate.” They never separate unless a person has a brain tumor. I put a key in a person’s hand, he’ll say that it’s a key. If he has this type of tumor he’ll say, “It’s hard, it’s got a long thing, a little edge is rough.”

If I say again, “What is it,” he’ll again give me the component parts. This behavior is called astereognosis. He is unable to take the individual facts and put them together.

The same thing happens in the process of thought [Machshovoh]. We get inputs from Wisdom and Understanding, but they are two friends that never separate because the moment we get these impressions we translate and organize them with Understanding. We don’t even perceive the Wisdom, but actually it precedes the Understanding, and if it were possible to separate them we would see the component parts.

When I gave this explanation in my class everyone understood it with a totally different insight. At times psychologists and psychiatrists attended the class. They understood extremely well what the Alter Rebbe was talking about as pertaining to the different levels of the brain. There are things that go on in the conscious mind, things in the unconscious, and the various level of the preconscious.

The preconscious is something that is never thought about. Right now I am conscious of the fact that I am talking with you. If you were to ask me something that happened many years ago, that’s someplace hidden in my brain, I don’t remember it. It could come out under hypnosis, or in a dream. Where is it? It’s in the unconscious. It’s not accessible. However, if you asked me what I did two days ago in San Francisco, I’ll think a moment and I’ll tell you. That thought is neither in my conscious mind, since I wasn’t thinking about it at the time, nor in the unconscious, because it is accessible, so it is in the preconscious

Within the preconscious there are levels. The important thing about this is to understand what the Alter Rebbe means by [the major classifications of spiritual stature which are mentioned in the first chapter of Tanya], Tzaddik vetov lo, Tzaddik vera lo, and Benoni, a complete Tzaddik, an incomplete Tzaddik, and an intermediate person. Without that it’s very difficult to understand. A complete Tzaddik has no evil even in the unconscious. It’s been totally transformed [to good]. Benoni has no evil in the conscious. The incomplete Tzaddik has no evil in the conscious, no evil in the preconscious, but he has evil in the unconscious.

When we analyze it this way, people understood things they never had before. Psychologists, who work with these concepts, have an idea of how there can be so many levels of Tzaddikim because there are many levels of unconscious and preconscious.

CD I’d like to ask you about the Teshuvah movement in America as of 1996. Are You involved with it?

RT Tangentially. My brother has been much more assertive. I have not been militantly assertive. Whenever I have an opportunity and people ask me, I’m glad to, but I have reasons of my own.

CD Looking at the Rebbe’s work over the last 45 years, where are we at? Are we making any progress against assimilation? Where are we going.

RT It seems that there’s a very sharp dichotomy that’s coming through. Unfortunately there is a strong, strong assimilatory force, but more than ever there have been people coming back. The kiruv movement has been very successful and could be even more successful with additional effort.

CD What do you think it’s lacking.

RT I’ve envisioned the 613 mitzvos as being 613 building blocks for the structure, and that without the 613 building blocks nothing can be done. I’ve also had the feeling that if you have the 613 blockas and you don’t put something together, then all you’ve got is a pile of bricks. You don’t have a house.

I think Chasidus for example has given a structure — this is what you do with Torah and Mitzvos. But first off you’ve got to have Torah and Mitzvos — without that you have nothing. What’s lacking is that people may be turned on to Torah and Mitzvos, thinking it will give them a way of life. After a while some find their way, and others say, “I’ve been doing this for two years and I don’t find that it has been doing anything for me.”

For some, Torah and Mitzvos has not been enough, because we have not given them the full structure of Torah and Mitzvos. That’s one of the reasons that I made a commentary on The Path of the Just. The statement on which it is based, the Baraita of Rav Pinchas ben Yair, is a ten-step moral progression all the way from Carefulness to the revelation of the Divine Presence. It does not concern itself with particular Mitzvos.

All correct roads lead to the same goal. The ten steps lead to the same goal as Chasidus has. I think what we need today in Kiruv is to go beyond the keeping of Torah and Mitzvos to such things as Chasidus or Musar teaches. If that doesn’t happen you’ll have a lot of people who will taste it, because they are looking for something. If they don’t go beyond the building blocks into the structure itself they are going to drop off.

CD You are implying that one should search for the Neshomah of the Torah. What made you translate Mesillas Yeshorim [The path of the Just]?

RT It is very well organized. It goes by gradation from one step to another. It’s universally acclaimed. The Mezeritcher Magid said that he (the author of Mesilas Yesharim, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzato) died young because his generation did not deserve him. Rabbi Yisroel Salant said that he could compose no end of [Talmudic analysis similar to] the Noda Biyehudah but he could not write one page of the Path of the Just. He is very clear, but I felt there was a need for some clarification and expansion of his ideas.

CD Do you find a Chasidic warmth in his words.

RT There sure can be, if you learn it right. The author himself states that this is not a book to be looked at one time, because he is not saying anything new. He’s telling you what you know, but what you forget. In a sense that’s what the Alter Rebbe does in the Tanya. Tanya begins with the verse that “For the thing is very close to you, in your mouth and heart to do it.” That’s something everyone knows. What do we do with our knowledge of that? Nothing! We know it and we don’t do anything about it. Therefore, just as the Path of the Just has to be reviewed again and again, as he says in the introduction, the same thing is with Tanya. If you learn Tanya once and put it away and say, “I learned it already,” nothing has been accomplished. Tanya has to be learned again and again.
I translated The Path of the Just first because it was much simpler and easier, and with Hashem’s help we’ll do the next one on Tanya.

CD Thank you for your time.