This Friday night, I'll be speaking about the renewed Christian nationalist effort to impose the Ten Commandments and Bible study on public school children. Part of the focus will be on how these groups narrow the interpretation of ancient Hebrew literature (our people's literature—talk about cultural appropriation!) to primarily meet Christian evangelical needs.
Humanistic Jews have our own critique of how ancient Israelite-Judean literature is used by fellow Jews. Sherwin Wine called this phenomenon "kosherizing" the text. The goals of Jewish text kosherizers may differ from those of evangelicals, but their techniques are the same. They include an almost unconscious desire to see things in the text that are not there.
In my search for a random example, the first result from Google led me to a Reform rabbi engaging in a unique variant of kosherizing—attempting to kosherize by psychoanalyzing our ancestors.
The process of kosherizing is less simplistic than you might imagine. It does not require the kosherizing interpreter to completely deny traditional understandings. In this case, the writer accurately explains the traditional definition of mitzvah as literally a command, in the most military sense of the word. However, this is followed by what can only be characterized as a stunningly ahistorical and presumptuous psychoanalysis of the commandees. In the biblical example he chose, the commandees are members of the ancient Israelite priesthood obeying an order to produce burnt sacrifices for Yahweh, their deity:
We [i.e., the non-Orthodox] look at the Hebrew Scriptures as a reflection of our people’s spiritual seeking and history—what our ancient ancestors thought God wanted them to do. We study these ancient ideas and stories. We revere their spiritual aspirations. And we strive to continue the tradition of living a life of holiness in the presence of God.

I certainly agree that Yahweh wanted them to do these things. But was it out of some spiritual aspiration to live "a life of holiness in the presence of God?" Was it not just as likely that they were propitiating their deity in the same manner as their ancient neighbors, hoping to avoid divine wrath? The writer concludes by recommending that today's spiritually aspirational Jews enter the mindset of their ancestors by picking and choosing those commandments that "bring a sense of God's presence" into their lives. (Is it even a commandment when you get to decide what to do?)
This is well meaning, of course. And I fully understand it. Heck, I fully taught it for many decades. How else could I have continued reciting blessings praising Adonai (Yahweh's nom de prayer) for sanctifying us with his commandments and commanding us to fill-in-the ritual-here?
At some point I came to the realization that saying this and believing it to be in concert with the goals of our ancestors was just another form of kosherizing. It was a spin on the tabloid cliché that celebrities are "just like us!" In this case it is our ancestors who were purportedly just like us. When they burned up those sacrificial animals they were simply seeking to fulfill their spiritual aspirations. Should this not be our purpose, too?
The truth is, this was not their goal. And those with spiritual aspirations, looking to live a "life of holiness in the presence of God," might want to reconsider looking to this highly kosherized interpretation of burnt sacrifices for inspiration. The priestly cult were not spiritual seekers. Those who devoted their lives to such practices were, in fact, a tiny minority of ancient Israelites and Judeans. If they were motivated by anything, it was the fear that failing to perform them correctly would have dire consequences (see Leviticus 10:1-2, for example).
One could argue that our secular use of the word mitzvah to mean a good deed is also a kosherizing of the Bible. And if we applied the word to things like burnt offerings, wearing tefillin, or keeping the dietary laws, one would be correct. But that's not what we do. Our use of the word is not an interpretation; it is what linguists call a semantic shift. That's what happens when people start using words differently. It's how awful, which once meant full of awe, became unpleasant. Or how clue, which originally meant a ball of yarn, came to mean a piece of evidence. There are countless examples in every language.
However, the most meaningful distinction between our secular and Humanistic use of the word mitzvah to mean a good deed or the practice of a good value is that we don't pretend this is what the Bible or ancient rabbis meant by it. Their understanding was militaristic. The Commander issued commands (mitzvot) and that was that. No spiritual aspirations were mentioned. That was the domain of subsequent kosherizers.
Our use of the word mitzvah is derived from generations of average Jews slowly changing their beliefs until the word mitzvah also took on the meaning we use today.
Humanistic Jews understand Judaism, in part, as the evolving experience of the Jewish people. I can think of no better example than the Jewish people's colloquial adoption of an alternative meaning for the word mitzvah. No kosherizing is necessary.
This commentary will be off for a few weeks. When I return, I plan to look at some of the ethical commitments that we Humanistic Jews celebrate when our children become mitzvah doers at the age of thirteen.