Q. Shalom Rav. I’m attending college always having my head covered. Some of my friends in class are interested and want to convert to Judaism. What is the correct way for me to deal with these people that seriously want to convert? Should I just ignore them, or help them? How?

A. Tamud (Yebamos 47a) teaches that we discourage a potential convert who comes to convert in our days, when the Jews are in exile. The judges of the court should say to him: What did you see that motivated you to come to convert? Don’t you know that the Jewish people at the present time are anguished, suppressed, despised, and harassed, and hardships are frequently visited upon them?

However If he says: I know, and although I am unworthy of joining the Jewish people and sharing in their sorrow, I nevertheless desire to do so, then the court accepts him immediately to begin the conversion process.

The best way is likely to refer them to a responsible and qualified Beis Din or Rabbinical institution that commonly deals with this issues.

Rabbi A. Bartfeld as revised by Horav Shlomo Miller, Horav Dovid Pam, Horav Aharon Miller and Horav Chanoch Ehrentreu Shlit’a