The sound of the shofar in synagogue on Rosh Hashanah is like getting a beep before the news.
That is what it says.
It's not the news.
It's just the beep telling you: I'm here–tune to the news.
In many ways the religious life is supposed to be a reminder.
Now, as it happens, people get accustomed even to the reminder.
The alarm clock is ringing and you go on sleeping.
You become so accustomed to these calls that you sleep through them, and just weave them into your dream.
–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
From an interview in Parabola magazine, March 1994