Curses and blessings. The Torah offers them in the same breath — and so does life. Just when everything seems to be going smoothly, something suddenly goes terribly wrong.

There is no rhyme or reason to it. We can invent thousands of explanations, but none truly explains why people hijacked airplanes on September 11, 2001 and killed thousands of people.

Why do some human beings choose to commit such dreadful, inhuman acts, while others dedicate their lives to good? Why do some run towards danger, thinking not of themselves but of those they might save? Why do some freeze while others act?

I think that the Torah hints at something profound when it reminds us that God is not one dimensional. God changes, grows, and transforms — from the God of Eden to the God of Israel. God is complex. And we, created in God’s image, also are complex.

Every fall, we Jews are given a chance to begin again — to look backward and forward, and to decide who we want to become in the year ahead.

That self-reckoning begins with looking inward. An image I once stumbled upon is that of a lightbulb. My essence — my soul, if you will — is the glowing filament. My body is the glass that holds and protects it. And like any lightbulb, mine gathers dust. Or schmutz, as my friend Julie calls it.

The accumulation is inevitable as we stumble along, being our perfectly imperfect selves. If we are fortunate, we leave behind us a trail of blessings. But even the best among us also leave behind curses. We do or say things we regret. We wound others — sometimes even those we love.

The month of Elul offers us a chance to wipe away the schmutz before Rosh Hashanah. To let our best qualities shine again. To face our mistakes, wash them off, and enter a new year ready to begin anew.

I know a woman who was riding the New York subway on the day the Twin Towers fell. At every stop, people covered in gray dust boarded the train. And as they entered, the other riders rose silently to give them their seats. The silence was complete.

Every September 11th, I think of those gray figures, coated in the dust of lives lost and worlds shattered. And I pray that in time, the dirt and grime, fear and trembling of that day, were washed away and that they, too, were able to shine again.