A month or so after the war ended, a typhoon swept over Okinawa, damaging or beaching more than a hundred vessels with some loss of life. My destroyer-minesweeper was thrown up on the rocks, pounding and grinding through a grim howling night. Next day, when all hands had been safely taken ashore, I observed a new warm respect toward me in the crew. As the executive officer, the captain’s enforcer, I was not loved. During the storm I had done nothing but hang on like everybody else. I asked an old chief what this was all about, and he told me that the sailors were convinced they had been saved by "Lieutenant Wouk’s black boxes."

I asked an old chief what this was all about, and he told me that the sailors were convinced they had been saved by "Lieutenant Wouk’s black boxes."

"But what did you get out of tying them on out there?" the agnostic may persist. "Did this obsessive business with leather straps, and Bible quotes inside black boxes, really bring you any closer to your God? Be honest. What was the difference in that, if any, from the Rebbe’s dime?" Fair question. Putting the best face on the conduct of the young man I was so very long ago, it was the difference between halakhah and Kabbalah.