The popular shofar, for instance, intends to call to a “stop” to self- deception and to “awaken” to life’s reality.
However, the most significant symbol, and one less talked about, is the “book” in which human deeds and every individual destiny is written.
Metaphorically the idea stressed by the High Holidays is that this is “autobiography time,” the moment during the year when every Jew’s task is to read his autobiography.
The problem with autobiographical works is that they are written with an audience in mind. They easily become “authorized biographies,” or even works of fiction.
Not surprisingly the holiday’s ideas may be considered debilitating by some.
Others prefer to look at them as just another occasion to express one’s ethnicity rather than an urge to delve into Judaism’s management of life.
However, unless one believes that there’s nothing that needs to be improved in one’s own life,
Judaism’s once a year invitation to confront who each of us really are, is one of the most precious Jewish contributions to the individual’s life.