While talking to someone about the qualities of marble for a particular construction, they told me that marble is like a "living stone": being a porous material, it absorbs water and moisture in general and expands and contracts according to temperature, pressure, etc.
If we can say "that it is alive" about marble, a stone, how much more can we say about the Torah, that it is a Living Torah.
Our sages comment that the Torah is called, in Hebrew, Torat Chaim. This expression can be translated in several ways:
1) "The Torah of Life." The Torah is a teaching for life. It is not merely an ancient tale from an ancient people (like fairy tales, where there was once a king and a prince, far away and long ago, but today there is nothing of the sort), but a teaching for life today, for our time and in our society and circumstances.
2) "The Torah is Life." The Torah is and gives us life, strength, and energy to maintain our identity intact beyond the circumstances that surround us.
There wasn't once a Torah. There is a Torah, or rather, we have a Torah, which teaches us how to be good people, with meaningful and fulfilling lives, and also gives us life and strength to move forward and overcome all of life's challenges.