The chevra kadisha, the holy society, is the voluntary body that prepares the Jewish dead for burial, and it is built around a service that can never be repaid.
The purest kindness
Its members perform the tahara, the ritual washing and purification of the body, dress it in plain white shrouds, and keep watch over it until burial so that it is never left alone. This care is understood as the truest form of kindness precisely because the dead can offer nothing in return, and membership of the society is regarded as an honour rather than a grim duty. The work is done quietly and without payment, and the identity of those who performed it is traditionally kept private.
Continuity of a communal duty
Every established Jewish community has maintained such a society, and its existence is one of the first institutions a new community creates, since burial cannot wait. The society also administers the cemetery and ensures that the poor are buried with the same dignity as the wealthy, the shrouds being deliberately identical for all. In the modern period much of the physical work is shared with funeral professionals, but the ritual core remains the responsibility of the society, so the institution has adapted its practice while keeping intact the duty it exists to discharge.