We hear a great deal about the need to pull back from the precipice of assimilation, the need to halt the tide of intermarriage which threatens to engulf Jewish communities in the United States. But what we don’t hear much about is why. Why resist assimilation? Why not become absorbed into the body of human civilization the way countless other nations have done over the course of history? Why do we take it for granted that Jewish continuity is a good thing? Perhaps because we have an intuitive sense that the world needs us.