CALL SHERLOCK HOLMES! The mystery of the discarded Torah scroll:

It was the end of June when a Maplewood resident walking his dog stumbled upon an object not ordinarily found in the green rolling hills of Essex County’s South Mountain Reservation [in New Jersey].

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In the end, the found scroll proved to be what is known as a “souvenir Torah.” Rabbis Geoffrey Spector and Adam Rosenbaum of Temple Beth Shalom in Livingston, where Chris Rakib works, told her that it is the kind of scroll that that is given to children who have their b’nei mitzva ceremonies on top of the Masada archaeological site in Israel.

The Hebrew letters are on paper, not parchment; therefore, it is not considered “kosher” for use in the synagogue (and not worth the tens of thousands of dollars that a full-size kosher Torah scroll can command).

Still, the Rakibs would like to reunite the scroll with Jennifer Langer, who, if she became bat mitzva in 5751, would be 27 or 28 years old. They would also like to know how the scroll ended up near the trash in a nature preserve? Even though it is not kosher, the scroll must have “sentimental value,” said Pierre Rakib.