Synagogue Volunteers Sift Through Landfill Searching For Precious Prayer Items
ROCHESTER, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) -- Dozens of volunteers from a Williamsburg, Brooklyn synagogue took an unusual field trip upstate to a landfill Thursday, searching for some precious prayer accessories.
Surveillance video shows an embroidered bag containing a pair of Talis and Tefillin fall into a trash can, but nobody at the Lee Gardens synagogue saw it happen.
When the owner went to retrieve the precious pair of square, leather boxes containing parchment of torah verses, which are an integral part of his daily prayer, he worried they were stolen. But the tape held the truth.
When the accident was discovered several days later, volunteers quickly mobilized to track the Tefillin all the way to a Rochester landfill.
Dozens boarded buses and headed upstate to search. They wore protective gear and sifted through 300 tons of trash.
"It's something we start wearing at our bar mitzvah, and we don't skip a single day in our lifetime," synagogue member Isaac Neuwirth explained.
Their prayers have yet to be answered, but volunteers and sanitation workers continue to search.