An ordained rabbi and psychiatrist, Dr. Twerski descends from the prominent chassidic rabbis of Czernobl, Karlin, Lubavitch, Sanz and Ropshicz. Dr. Twerski's essays reflect his chassidic legacy and his background in psychology and psychiatry.

Currently the medical director of Pittsburgh's Gateway Rehabilitation Center, Dr. Twerski is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

The ads say: "Give diamonds, because a diamond is forever." But this is not quite true.

Yes, a diamond is the hardest and most durable substance, but as a possession, it is hardly eternal. It can be lost or stolen, leaving one only with the grief over its loss. To give a gift that is truly forever, give memories.

When I was nine years old, a visitor at our home on Rosh Hashanah afternoon invited me to play chess, assuring me that it was permissible. He was a good player, but I eventually won. That night, my father asked to speak with me. He looked up from his books as I entered his room.

"You played chess on Rosh Hashanah?" he asked quietly.

"Yes," I said, "Mr. C. said it was permitted."

Father looked back into his books, slowly shaking his head in the negative.

The message was clear. Mr. C. was correct according to the letter of the law, but it was not proper. Feeling remorse, I regretted violating the holiday spirit.

Father looked up, and there was a twinge of a smile and a twinkle in his eye. "But you did checkmate him, didn't you?"

I did something wrong, and was held accountable. Regretting my misdeed, I wiped the slate clean. It was now time for a positive stroke. One can admonish and chastise without hurting a person's ego.

At times, father let me know that he was proud of me. As a child, father gave me my own little shofar, and I became proficient in its use.

One Rosh Hashanah, our cantor had difficulty with the shofar, and after a few attempts, he passed the shofar to another person, who fared no better.

Seeing the situation, I took out my little shofar, and blew all the required sounds. The congregation resumed the service and at the next designated point, everyone assumed that whoever had successfully blown the shofar would do so again, which I did. I completed all three soundings, and the worshippers, covered with prayer shawls over their heads, could see nothing.

After the service, it was discovered that it was an eight-year-old who had blown the shofar. Father ruled that all the soundings had to be repeated by an adult, since a minor's blowing is invalid. But father thoroughly enjoyed my performance, and never failed to tell people of my little shofar stunt.

A man was swaying to and fro with the talit over his head, saying the Yom Kippur prayers with a solemn, mournful melody.

A worshipper asked him. "What in these prayers makes you cry?"

"Don't you see?" the man responded. "The tragedy of human life is described here. It reads, 'What is man/ His origin is dust, and he returns to dust.'"

"You call that a tragedy?" the other man responded. "Had it said that man was made out of gold and turns into dust, that would indeed be a tragedy.

But if his origin is dust and he returns to dust, and in the interim he has the opportunity to make a L'chayim (a toast), why, that is not a tragedy. That is pure profit!"

It all depends how you look at life.

The essential ingredient in repentance is a sincere sense of regret in the heart.

A student of the Rebbe of Karlin once complained that he had not achieved the spiritual level to which he had aspired.

"What can I do, my son?" the Rebbe asked. "Thus far I could not find the key to your heart."

"The key?" the student cried out in anguish. "Who needs a key? Use an axe to open my heart if you have to!" "No need," the Rebbe replied. "Your heart has just opened."

In Cracow lived a peasant, Izik, who dreamt that a huge treasure was buried under a certain bridge in Prague. Izik dismissed the dream, but after numerous repetitions he took it seriously. The dream gave him no rest, and he decided to go find the treasure. Izik arrived in Prague, and found the bridge shown in his dream. But alas, police patrolled it, and he could not dig there.

He loitered around the bridge, hoping to dig for the treasure when there would be a break in the patrol. Finally a policeman approached him. "Why do you loiter around here day after day?" the policeman demanded.

Izik broke down and related his dream to the policeman.

The policeman howled with laughter. "You fool! " he said. "Because of a silly dream you traveled all the way here? Well, I also dreamt that near Cracow, under the floor of a little hut of a peasant named Izik Reb Yekale's, lies an immense treasure."

Izik immediately returned home, dug up the floor of his hut, and discovered a great treasure.

People tend to look for wealth elsewhere. They search for all kinds of wealth, especially for the greatest wealth: happiness. They spend much energy searching for happiness elsewhere. Little do they know that the happiness they seek lies right within their own self. No need to travel far, one only has to look within.

Some childhood memories are quite solemn, but no less enjoyable.

Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur were solemn days; solemn, yet festive. In a sense, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur were anticlimactic. The preparation for these holidays had a an even greater impact than the days themselves.

Father hardly showed emotion during his prayer, which was quiet and subdued. Since he had surgery on his vocal cords, he didn't lead the services, except for Mincha before Rosh Hashanah, and Ne'ilah,Yom Kippur's concluding service).

Father's Mincha on Erev Rosh Hashanah was soul-rending. Actually, the words were no different than the regular service said thrice daily all year around. But this was the final service of the year. It was one last opportunity to do a mitzvah in the remaining moments. If one had failed to have a proper attitude towards prayer and devotion during the entire year, here was one last chance.

"Return us, O Father, to Your Torah, and bring us back to serve You...forgive us our transgressions,...heal us, and we shall be healed...return to Your sanctuary in Jerusalem..."

Every verse was saturated with tears, and the congregation wept along with him. Why did we not say these prayers this way all year? Why did we just mumble the words out of habit and not grasp their full meaning?

Our grandfather the Rebbe of Sanz related this parable.

A king punished his wayward son by banishing him to a distant land. The prince wandered from village to village, and finally became a shepherd.

But he found it unbearable to be exposed to the hot sun in the open pastures.

The prince saw that other shepherds built themselves little huts of sticks and branches, but try as he might, he just couldn't construct a hut. Never having done any manual labor, his attempts resulted in failure. Months and years went by, and the prince suffered from the scorching sun.

One day the prince heard that a great and rare event was soon to take place. The king was passing through, and there would be a grand parade.

There was a tradition that anyone could write a request on a slip of paper, and as the royal coach passed, throw it into the coach. The king would read those petitions that landed in the coach and grant the requests.

On the day of the parade, the prince joined the villagers. Writing on a slip of paper, he requested a little hut that he could carry with him to the pasture to protect him from the sun. As the royal coach passed, he threw his petition to the king.

The king opened the little note, recognized his son's handwriting, and began to weep bitterly. "How my child has deteriorated," he cried. "He no longer recalls that he is a prince. He does not ask to return to the royal court where he would lack nothing. His greatest aspiration is to have a little hut, to be less uncomfortable in the lowly position to which he resigned himself."

Grandfather wept along with the king in the parable.

"On Rosh Hashanah" he said, "we present G-d with our petitions. This one asks for wealth, and this one asks for a fancy dwelling. They have forgotten that they are really princes. They do not ask to be permitted to return home from exile where the royal court would provide all their needs, and more. How deeply hurt our Father must be when he receives our petitions. He sees that we have forgotten our unique relationship to Him, and have resigned ourselves to a lowly status, where our aspirations are not higher than the equivalent of a thatched hut."

Excerpted from "Generation to Generation." Reprinted with permission of CIS publishers in Lakewood, NJ.