Ask any batting coach and he will tell you that the key to success in baseball is  just to hit the ball. Don’t swing for the fences, don’t try to pull the ball, just make sure that the bat makes solid contact. And the key to making contact is to keep your eyes sharply focused on the ball.

In everyday life, the key to dealing with everything that comes our way is exactly the same. We all experience ups and downs. At certain times we feel that we're sitting on top of the world…yes, life is great! Yet we are all human, and so we also struggle. We experience challenges, trials and tribulations.

In this week’s Torah portion, Metzorah, we find a very powerful insight that can help us navigate our way through life’s challenges. The Torah discusses a person who speaks lashon harah – negative information about someone else, without any constructive purpose.

In Biblical times, such a person was stricken with the spiritual disease known as tzara’as, a form of a skin disease. The Torah also uses another word to describe that person’s condition – the word negah, which literally means affliction. For the purposes of our insight, however, we shall understand negah as a general term referring to life’s challenges, trials, and tribulations. In Hebrew the word negah is spelled with the three Hebrew letters: nun, gimmel, and ayin. It is fascinating to note that if one were to rearrange those same three letters, the resulting word would be the word oneg (spelled ayin, nun, gimmel), which means delight! Wow, imagine that!  Depending on how you arrange the exact same letters you end up with either challenges (negah) or delight (oneg)! What lesson can we learn from this?

The commentaries offer the following insight. The letter ayin, literally means eye. In the word  oneg (delight) the ayin appears first, in the beginning of the word. By contrast, in the word negah (challenges), the letter ayin appears at the end of the word. Symbolically, the Torah is teaching us about the value of having the proper perspective and outlook regarding the events and situations that we encounter. If we allow our eyes to be out in front, if we search out and assign meaning and purpose to all that we experience, then we will end up with oneg-delight. On the other hand, if we put the eye at the end (so to speak), placing a low priority to seeking and examining the meaning in each life experience and seeing things through a very restricted narrow “lens”, then unfortunately we may end up seeing only negah-challenges. Ultimately, within every challenge there lies the opportunity to look above and beyond, to find or assign meaning and purpose to every situation.

I would like to share an example of this phenomenon in our community of Marlboro, NJ. There is a family whose child has undergone some surgeries and numerous illnesses. Challenges, trials and tribulations…certainly. But the family made a decision. They decided to put their eyes “out in front” and look for meaning beyond the readily apparent challenges. They assigned purpose and meaning to their situation and came up with the idea of creating a "bikkur cholim", a foundation dedicated to visiting sick children and bringing them friendship and a smile. Assistance with meals and rides to doctors would also be offered. Yes, they decided to turn a challenge into delight – negah into oneg.

Obviously, we may not be qualified to be major league baseball players, but we all have the ability to become all-stars. All we have to do is keep our eye on the ball.