Today, assimilation has reached proportions the likes of which we have not seen in over two thousand years.
The majority of the Jewish people has no interest in Judaism.
Not since the Hellenistic period, perhaps, have we lived in a time when to be a Jew is a matter of nationality, race, family, and other factors, but not a matter of religion.
Statistics today show that for every second that goes by, there is approximately one less Jew in the world; not because he is killed, but because he assimilates among the non-Jews.
This situation, which pertains not just to anomalous individuals but to the entire community, is a tremendous change for us, and we have already forgotten how to deal with such a problem.
We know how to deal with one apostate or what to do in the case of a minor misfortune.
But how do we cope with the kind of traumatic phenomenon that affects an entire people?
Assimilation today is an entirely different kind of problem from what we have dealt with in the past; it is a crisis like no other.
–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz