Using it more than studying it

In Two Carts, in the third chapter, chapter two, you write in praise of the use of the Torah, which is what imparts synthetic thinking, and you write, “You need (to learn the Torah forms of thinking) a living teacher, and a meeting with all parts of that teacher’s personality.”
1. I remember you once saying that today books are teachers, and the use is through reading books. Doesn’t that contradict the Mishnah? Although I also remember you saying that you never had a rabbi/teacher in that sense, just a certain affection for one rabbi who was in the yeshiva where you studied, but nothing more than that.
2. Is it possible, and if so how, to have a “meeting with his personality, a special relationship, etc.” with you (meaning, you are a priest, of course)?