The spiritual power of walking (Simon Eder, 9/10/26, The Jewish Chronicle)
A 2024 umbrella review of multiple meta-analyses, published in Science Direct, found that a few thousand steps a day measurably changes the trajectory of a life. Modern medicine has, in its own idiom, rediscovered something Judaism has never forgotten: that the body in motion is not incidental to the soul’s condition, but bound up with it.
Judaism has long affirmed the power of walking and movement itself carries spiritual weight. The Three Regalim — Pesach, Shavuot and Succot are literally “foot festivals,” which historically demanded physical pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The Torah’s central narrative is itself a journey on foot, from Egyptian bondage through the wilderness toward the Promised Land.