A Torah. (Wikipedia)
A car containing a $30,000 Torah that was stolen outside a Brooklyn Synagogue this weekend was found safe on Monday, proving definitely that Rabbis’ have better karma than you do.
The car was discovered on Monday, with the Torah intact, on Avenue I and East 10th street in Flatbush, according to police. No arrests have been made.
The precious scroll had been in the care of one Rabbi Binyamin Tamaiev, who works as a scribe repairing damaged torahs. Running late for services at Flatbush’s Orthodox Congregation Agudath Sholom, Mr. Tamaiev didn’t have time to put his keys in the safe, but instead left them in the Synagogue’s front room, with his car parked conveniently outside.
It is believed that the thief entered the synagogue during Friday night services, and took some money from the charity boxes before coming across the keys.
Since it is against religious rules to drive on the Sabbath, the Jewish day of rest, Tamaiev didn’t discover his missing until the following morning. Fortunately, there’s nothing in Jewish law about not leaving ridiculously valuable holy artifacts chilling overnight in your Toyota, so at least the big guy wasn’t mad. (Though we suspect whoever owns the $30,000 scroll wasn’t super thrilled with the whole fiasco).
“I was there at the time he (Rabbi Tamaiev) didn’t see the keys and he was a little bit panicked because he knew–I didn’t–that the Torah scroll was in the car,” said the Synagogue’s Acting Director Walter Rosenblatt, who called the theft “a tremendous shock.”
Naturally, everyone in the community is thrilled at its return.
“The speedy recovery of this sacred scroll is a testimony to our ability to work together,” said Assemblyman Dov Hikind in a statement. “Every last one of us will sleep easier tonight.”