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To accomplish the task, firewalkers must walk through a bed of coal, stones, or other objects, which are on fire or glowing white hot. If done successfully, the participant emerges not only without pain, but also with no visible burns, scorches, or any other ill effects.
‘Of all phenomena, the ability of certain individuals to walk barefoot through fire without being burned is perhaps the most spectacular and unquestionably the most puzzling.’ (Paul G. Brewster, 1977).
Throughout India, Greece, Spain, China, Japan, Bulgaria, Ceylon, Thailand, Fiji, Tibet, and many other parts of the world, firewalking is a widespread practice, usually performed as a religious ritual. To accomplish the task, firewalkers must walk through a bed of coal, stones, or other objects, which are on fire or glowing white hot. If done successfully, the participant emerges not only without pain, but also with no visible burns, scorches, or any other ill effects.
Many theories have been brought down over time; coal does not conduct heat, the speed prevents injury, the way the foot is placed snuffs out the heat, yet this never fully explains the phenomena. There are many who walk over hot stones or even iron grills, who wear stockings which do not get burnt, or who proceed slowly, spending sometimes half an hour on the practice.
Yet whatever the reason is, as Professor Burkan of the Firewalking Institute of Research and Education says, ‘What controls [the ability to fire walk] is more than physics, it's your state of mind’. For without the belief that you will be okay, you would not be willing to try it.
Sometimes, all it takes to achieve the impossible is a little belief. All it takes to change our reality is the mindset we adopt.
In this month, on the 25th of Kislev, the Jews finally won the battle of Yerushalayim against the Greek oppressors. They recaptured the desecrated Temple and started the mammoth task of cleaning it and restoring it from the Greeks’ ransacking.
We all know how this chapter of the story ends: They built a temporary wooden menorah to replace the gold one that the Greeks had stolen. Yet when they came to kindle it, they were missing the requisite pure olive oil, for the Greeks had destroyed them all. And, in the greatest treasure hunt that ever took place, a little boy finally found a single sealed flask of oil – enough to last for just one day. They lit the menorah, and it lasted for the eight days it took until new oil could arrive in Yerushalayim, and because of this we celebrate the eight days of Chanuka.
The Maccabees could have given up when they arrived at the Beit Hamikdash and found everything in ruins. They could have waited for new oil to arrive. Yet they chose not to allow circumstances to get in their way. They chose to search until they found one tiny jar of oil, and they chose to light it even though there was not enough. And it was that belief that everything would work out if they did their bit, that step into the unknown that they took, which ultimately created their reality.
Reb Yosef Caro, the famed 15th century Spanish Rabbi, asks the question; the miracle only lasted for seven days – they had enough oil for one day so the first day was no miracle. So why do we celebrate eight days?
There are many beautiful answers to this question, yet Rabbi Eliyahu Kitov answers by questioning the very premise of this question. He explains that the fact that oil burns is in itself a miracle.
The Greeks tried to vanquish G-d from within the Jewish nation. They tried to eradicate the idea of divinity, of a G-d who creates and manipulates and watches over a world. And in the greatest triumph of all, G-d showed them the He is indeed there. He is there behind all of creation big and small, and He is there behind every event, whether it seems to us to be miraculous or natural.
The Talmud in Taanit tells us how Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa arrived home one Friday night and found his daughter upset. He said to her, ‘My daughter, why are you sad?’ She said to him, ‘I confused a vessel of vinegar for a vessel of oil, and I lit the Shabbat lamp with vinegar.’
He said to her, ‘My daughter, what are you concerned about? He Who told the oil that it should burn can tell the vinegar that it should burn.’ And that lamp burned continuously the entire day, until they took a flame from it in order to make havdala.
When we live in a world where we understand that G-d is indeed behind every atom of the universe, whether it behaves in ways that we attribute to nature or not, then we live in a world where anything is possible. Where we can never be scared to step into the unknown because we know that as long as we are following the words of the King of the Universe, then we will be okay.