A Hebrew University study found recently that adults who attend synagogue regularly live longer than those who do not attend synagogue. The research was conducted by Professor Howard Litwin of the Israel Gerontological Data Center (IGDC), and was published in The European Journal of Aging.
The study’s data showed that the death rate was 75 percent higher among the group that did not attend synagogue than it was among the group that attended synagogue regularly. “Those who attended synagogue regularly clearly had the highest rate of survival," said Litwin.
The Talmud in tractate Berachot 8a, coincidentally, makes a similar statement: "R. Yehoshua ben Levi said to his children, ‘Go early and stay late in shul in order that you should live a long life.’"
The study was based on a 1997 Central Bureau of Statistics survey in which 5,000 Israeli men and women aged 60 and above were interviewed about their way of life.
