So how are you going to grow differently, let's say in Bircas, than somewhere else you might go? I'm going to answer this question by really defining what a yeshiva is as opposed to a beis medrash. My rebbi used to make this distinction and say that the chiluk between a yeshiva and a beis hamedrash is that a beis hemedrash is a place where people come and they learn. You might have a shiur. It could be a maggid shiur that is giving it over. You might even call it yeshiva. But essentially, it's a beis medrash, where people are coming and they're learning.

He used to say that a yeshiva is a little bit different. Of course people are learning and there's a beis medrash. But really it’s a place where people come and get together in order to help each other fulfill the Torah, to do the ratzon Hashem. And that's really something all-encompassing. That's not just about what's pshat in the Tosfos or what’s going on in the acahron you are learning, or getting the shiur and learning it up. Not only that. It involves your entire life. Everything.  

So, Bircas HaTorah is a yeshiva. You know when you come into the beis medrash and you're with the rebbeim and you're learning with them and getting a shiur from them, and you're schmoozing with them. You were going to get a sense that is - there's no authority figures. It's not like high school where you have people that are in charge and they're sort of giving over their wisdom to you, and teaching you how to live life from up here. We are all here. We are all together, learning the Torah, trying to mekayem to Torah and help each other people mekayem the Torah. And that's something that I think is palpable in Bircas HaTorah that might be special that you'll experience that may not be as palpable in other places that that you might go.  

That distinction between a rebbe and a talmid definitely is there. There are definitely the rebbeim being here that have the mesora and what they give over, and that's definitely being done, but it's being done in a way where everyone gets a sense that we're all working hard to develop ourselves, to become better bnei Torah, better Torah Jews, to understand our Torah better, to become better in our learning. Everybody from the Rosh Yeshiva to first year talmid, everybody is struggling to understand Toras Hashem.  

That environment is something that I think really inspires people to take their growth and their limmud seriously. Not just as some intellectual exercise. They know that's important, but they see what it means for a person to take thier growth seriously. We see the lives that are led by people who take that seriously and a person who looks at that and says.”that’s attractive, I want that, I want to be a part of that.” And so it's not something he really needs to be convinced about it. It’s happening and you see it and you see it in your rebbe and you see in the avreich next to you, and in the Rosh Yeshiva and everybody is doing the same thing. You can't help but want to do to do that as well.  

So that's a kind of growth that comes from almost an experiential, you know, experiencing what it means to live a life of a yirei shamayim. And it's inspiring.