“Doing Impossible Things – Lessons from Noach” Cantor Stillman’s Qabbalat Shabbat Sermon, 10/24/25

Cantor Stillman
Qabbalat Shabbat, October 24, 2025
Temple Israel of Boston

Impossible things are not impossible when we do them together

When the Boston Marathon returned to post-pandemic Boston, I decided then and there I would be a runner. I watched professionals and amateurs alike pass by, knowing they’d reach the finish line just minutes later. What a feat of human strength.

With tears streaming down my face and a lump in my throat, I cheered for people who chose to push themselves to the limits of what their bodies would allow. I cheered and clanged my metal water bottle against barricades as an endless rainbow of runners realized their dreams. 

Look what the human spirit can do…and the human body can do.

I wanted to do it too. 

So I bought my sneakers, listened to coaches, learned about gait and fuel and when to eat pasta and when to take Aleve. I was going to run the Boston Marathon – with ZERO experience whatsoever. 

What could possibly make us step forward when a task seems so big, the odds so very high, and the effort so uncertain.

Is it possible to do seemingly impossible things?

In Parashat Noach, the world is filled with corruption and violence. God tells Noach to build an ark — a massive, unprecedented project — to save life itself. What a terrible idea it must have seemed, how irrational, how daunting: there was no rain, no blueprint for such a structure, he was mercilessly mocked by his peers.

Yet at 600 years old, וַיַּ֖עַשׂ נֹ֑חַ כְּ֠כֹ֠ל אֲשֶׁ֨ר צִוָּ֥ה אֹת֛וֹ אֱלֹהִ֖ים כֵּ֥ן עָשָֽׂה׃

“Noach did so, all that God commanded him, so he did” (Gen. 6:22), the Torah’s simple statement of extraordinary obedience and courage.

Noach represents the quiet heroism of doing the impossible when no one else understands why it has value. Sensing that there is spiritual meaning in doing something impossibly hard. His faith is not about certainty—it’s about trust and perseverance when the path ahead is unclear. When the path is 13.1 miles long and it is raining.

Sometimes faith doesn’t sound like a prayer—it sounds like hammering wood in dry weather. Sukkot is but a recent memory, and yet the story of Noach stands before us, the ark was not only a physical refuge; it was a mystifying act of courage. 

It takes faith to begin something when no one else believes in it. It takes humility to follow the instructions step by step, not knowing where it will lead.

And like the animals who entered the ark – by two-sies, I didn’t do it alone. I had a partner. A partner so steady, to keep pace beside me when I wanted to stop, even when I did stop, who reminded me that I could go a little farther, who shared in the laughter and the pain and the water breaks.

That’s how we do the impossible: together.

This is why we study in chevruta.

This is why we have friends, mentors and coaches.

The ark was never meant for one person. It was a vessel of community—pairs of living beings, surviving together, sustaining each other. 

I can imagine the noise, the smell!!!!  – whether there would be enough food, whether the relentless pounding of rain would ever stop…

Every day depended on partnership, on the shared strength of multiple hearts beating toward the same purpose.

Maybe that’s the deeper meaning of Parashat Noach—not just survival, but solidarity. Not just building wood and pitch, but building faith and friendship strong enough to weather any storm.

Each of us has our own ark to build. Sometimes it’s rebuilding after loss. Sometimes it’s showing up for justice or hope when cynicism feels easier. Sometimes it’s getting out of bed when grief feels heavy. The flood looks different for each of us—but the call is the same: 

Build anyway. 

What is your ark? What feels impossible, but necessary to do today. 

Begin even when you don’t yet see the rain.

When the flood finally came, Noach entered the ark with all of creation. And when it was over, the world began anew with a rainbow, reminding us that human effort invites divine grace. And  when we act with faith, even trembling faith, something holy meets us halfway.

Today, 

When I need to remind myself that I can do impossible things – I go for a run.

May we each find the strength to build what our world needs—even when it feels impossible. May our faith become the wood, our hope the hammer, and our love the ark that carries us forward.

And when you finally stand on dry ground again, exhausted and amazed, two by two….you might just look up and see your own rainbow— it turns out that impossible was never as far away as it seemed.