In a nutshell we mean that the Torah is not happening somewhere else - on the page, in the Rashi, or in the maggid shiur’s head. It is happening inside the talmidim, inside their heads and in their interactions with the maggid shiur and the other members of the shiur. 

This manifests itself in two specific ways. 

The first is that the shiur is not about maggid shiur leading the students on his journey through the sugya. He is not coming to the shiur with some chiddush that he has worked out and then the shiur is him trying to transmit that chiddush to the students, making sure they understand it. Rather the maggid shiur is there, ready and prepared to facilitate the talmidim’s journey, like an expert guide helping them to explore the sugya, providing them with tools and also to help them be conscious of the tools that they are using in their learning.

The second relates to the group as a whole and the group dynamics. The maggid shiur tries to make sure that the talmidim understand the back and forth that is happening in the shiur between the students (e.g. a student will ask a question on Rashi, a second student will answer, a third will have an issue with / question that answer, and a fourth will remove the question), re-presenting that back and forth, echoing it back to them as a shackel v’tarya, slowing it down, making sure that everyone sees each step, so that ultimately everyone understands that what they are doing right now is the Torah Sh’bal Peh, the Oral Torah. 

The students’ thoughts and interactions, their kashias and their teirutzim - that is the Torah coming alive. That is the Torah; not what’s on the page. What is on the page is just the beginning.

The common denominator between these two characteristics is that the shiur is not the talmidim trying to watch Rashi learn, watch the Gemara do its thing, or even follow the train of thought of the maggid shiur. Rather the talmidim are trying to understand the sugya and explore it themselves, and to understand that that is the Torah.