Note 185 — II. OUR DUTIES. (continued 4)
Reading edition
Burying the dead is a very old custom, to which the Jews adhered firmly at all ages. The custom of the Greeks, who burnt their dead, found no advocates among the Jews. In the Written and the Oral Law only the burying of the dead is mentioned. To leave a human body unburied and unattended was considered by Jews, as by other nations, an insult to the deceased person, and whoever found such a body was bound to take charge of it and to effect its burial.185