“… with none to bury them.” (79:3)

Burial is a fundamental Jewish mitzvah (God-commanded obligation). Along with procreation, brit milah (circumcision), and refraining from eating the sciatic nerve of a kosher animal, it is one of a small handful of mitzvot one can learn from the book of Genesis (from Abraham’s burial of Sarah in Genesis 23, although normally derived from Deuteronomy 21:23). Many Jewish communities, in fact, began with the formation of burial societies and the purchase of land for a cemetery. Planning for one’s burial in a Jewish cemetery is a basic Jewish behavior.