Our tradition teaches that all Jews are to be buried in the same type of inexpensive garments, plain white linen or cotton shrouds (takhrikhim). This practice also emphasizes the fact that all people, rich and poor alike, are equal before God. The same principle is reflected in the requirement of a plain, wooden coffin. It is customary for a dead man to be buried in a tallit which he used during his life, after one of the fringes has been cut to make it ritually unfit. Objects of value for the living are not buried with the dead.

The Talmud records that at one time the expense of burying the dead was harder to bear than the fact of death itself. It reached the pint that families sometimes abandoned the bodies of relatives to escape the burden of an overwhelming expense. Then the distinguished Rabban Gamaliel left instructions that he be buried in plain linen shrouds rather than in the expensive garments which he and his family easily could have afforded. His act set an impressive precedent, and since that time, Jewish tradition has insisted upon simple burial.