If Day 42 was about counting, Day 43 for me was about becoming. I was proud to participate in a beit din, a Jewish court of law, to witness the becoming of seven new Jews. Three young children, four adults. Each one had a different story. Each one came to Judaism a different way.

When does someone become a Jew? For us, it is not a lighting bolt. For us it is a process, a slow process. There is study before hand. Some of these candidates studied with my colleague Rabbi Marc Rudolph for 20 sessions. My adult candidate had studied with me for nine months. Weekly. Others require a year or two.

Judaism requires a dip in a mikveh, the Jewish ritual bath, a circumcision and the appearance before the Beit Din. My candidate will be announcing his change in status at a very special service around Shavuot next week. He will stand in front of the open ark, hold the Torah, receive a blessing, his conversion certificate and proclaim the Sh’ma publicly as a Jew. He is, by his own choice and suggestion, adding the phrase, “Hayom ani yehudi. Today I am a Jew.”

At which moment does he become a Jew? When the circumcision is complete? When he dunks three times in the mikveh? When he proclaims the Sh’ma for the first time publicly as a Jew? When the certificates are signed? I am not sure there is a precise moment. It is a process.

Tomorrow I will go to ordination at the Academy for Jewish Religion. I am excited about this because three years out from my own, it marks a renewal of my becoming a rabbi. I return in a good place. I have a great job, one that I love, as a pulpit rabbi. Yes, I really am a pulpit rabbi despite some of the naysayers. Becoming a rabbi, like becoming a Jew is a process. At what point did I become a rabbi? When I entered rabbinical school? When I served as a student rabbi and people called me rabbi? When I completed the course work, passed all the comps and the ritual skills? When I dunked in the mikveh? When the smicha document was signed? When Rabbi Neil Kominsky blessed me on the bimah? Each of those moments were powerful experiences. No one moment made me a rabbi.

Marriage, like becoming a Jew or becoming a rabbi, is a change in status. It is a holy process where a couple is set apart, one for the other. It is also a process involving mikveh, a document, and the chuppah. In Hebrew the word for marriage is kiddushin, the same root as kadosh, holy. It is said that Shavuot, the anniversary of the Israelites standing at Sinai, is the wedding of the Jewish people and G-d. The Torah is the document. It too is a process. We all stood at Sinai, even those yet unborn.

Each of these public ceremonies is the public affirmation of what already is. Each of these ceremonies is poignant, meaningful, powerful. They each mark a change in status. I like what the three year old at the mikveh said. I asked her if she knew why she was there. She said, “Today I am getting a special bath.” I asked her if she knew why. She answered, “Today I am becoming more Jewish because I already am Jewish.” I think that is true for each of the new Jews we welcomed today, each of these new members of the tribe. It was a good day for Judaism. It was a good day for each of them. It was a good day for me. In the words of Rabbi Stephen Arnold, dean of the Boston rabbis, “May we not disappoint you. May we live up to your expectations so that as you continue the process of being Jewish you are proud to call yourself a Jew.” Ken yehi ratzon.