As I began telling the story I could see the smiles and nodding of heads. The children already knew this story as I have told it to them throughout the years. Some of the older teens were even there that night when Oreo Cookie needed their help.

I also shared the story the previous evening during the Kol Nidrei service. But I was telling it again hoping it would help all of us understand how powerful our prayers can be. This was the very lesson Oreo Cookie taught me eleven years ago….. 

That particular afternoon my sister, Susan, didn't come into our Hebrew School to teach. She needed to stay home with Oreo  who had an emergency operation a week earlier. I still remember the look that passed between us as I dropped him off at her house. We were preparing ourselves. 

But we both had a glimmer of hope. The Hebrew School children would be praying for him. They had learned from the time they were in kindergarten how to connect to their Divine Light. How to send it as a way to pray and bring healing. Every week they would decide where they were going to send their Light. 

The children were of course thrilled to be able to help Oreo Cookie whom they all knew and loved. And they believed they could. 

It was 7:10 p.m. when the children sent their Light to Oreo. Exactly ten minutes later at 7:20 p.m. for the first time he perked up his head, took a drink, wagged his tail and ate some food. He went on to recover, living another five years. A few weeks later he went into the school to thank everyone. I still remember how he went up and down the aisles having a leg licking feast! 

As I finished the story I asked everyone to please once again come together in our hearts to not only send healing to everyone we were praying for but especially to MaryEllen, one of our congregants, a mother of two teenagers, who was in the hospital struggling with the variant. 

I shared that already from the healing prayers we sent out the evening before there was a huge shift. Her oxygen levels were able to be lowered for the entire night!

Of course you want to know how MaryEllen has fared. The end of the story or perhaps I should say the beginning is that although it was not an easy road, MaryEllen became stronger each day and was able to be released from the hospital four days after Yom Kippur. She is continuing to heal and get stronger each day.

When I first learned of the situation I immediately put the whole family on our daily MiSheberach list. In asking others to pray I knew the prayers needed to be absolutely pure with only the highest vibrational energies surrounding her. That meant keeping COVID related fears out of the equation. 

I was directed to put a Bubble of Light around her. It would only let Love in but at the same time transmute any lower fears  that were bound to be stirred up. 

I knew it wasn’t an accident that MaryEllen would still be in the hospital during Yom Kippur. Not only would we all be able to come together in a powerful group prayer- Oreo Cookie’s lesson- but with this same power on this most sacred day we would also be working on healing the divisiveness that is so prevalent in our world. 

Maybe one day we will look back and understand that healing this divisiveness was one of the main lessons of COVID-19. But what if we could just decide to learn it right now. That would really be an amazing lesson, wouldn’t it!! 

Love,

Cantor Lee

Read more about Oreo Cookie

Read Rabbi David's thoughts on COVID-19 lessons

Watch the video to hear story and the Misheiberach

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