Abraham Joshua Twerski was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His parents were Devorah Leah (née Halberstam; 1900–1995),  daughter of the second Rebbe of Bobov, and Rabbi Jacob Israel Twerski (1898–1973), who was the Rabbi of Beth Jehudah synagogue in Milwaukee. and a descendant of Rabbi Menachem Nachum Twerski, the founder of the Chernobyl Hasidic dynasty, and a student of the Baal Shem Tov.

He enrolled in the Hebrew Theological College of Chicago and was ordained a rabbi in 1951. He worked with his father as assistant rabbi until 1959.  In 1952 he married Goldie Flusberg.  In 1953 Twerski enrolled at Milwaukee’s Marquette University, and subsequently graduated from its medical school in 1960. He received his psychiatric training at the University of Pittsburgh and spent an additional two years on the staff of a state hospital in Pennsylvania. He was then asked to become the department head of psychiatry at Pittsburgh’s St. Francis Hospital.

Rabbi Twerski’s founded the Gateway Rehabilitation Center in Pittsburgh, for which he served as medical director emeritus.  He was clinical director of the Department of Psychiatry at St. Francis Hospital in Pittsburgh, associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Medicine, and founder of the Shaar Hatikvah rehabilitation center for prisoners in Israel.

Rabbi Twerski was a prolific writer of Jewish books, shiurim and 90 books on a broad array of mental health topics including addictions, self-esteem, personal growth and  parenting.  Perhaps less known, he composed a melody for the Hebrew verse Psalms 28:9 “Hoshea es Amecha,” which became popular in the Jewish world.  The song became especially popular in the Lubavitch community, after the Lubavitcher Rebbe sang it at a farbrengen.  In his will he specified that he did not want there to be eulogies at his funeral, but rather, for his children to sing the song he composed, “Hoshea es Amecha”, as they led him to his final resting place.