Parshat Eikev 

One of the special fruits of the land of Israel are olives. The Talmud teaches a very unique quality of olives: eating olives leads to forgetfulness, while eating olive oil leads to a good memory. Based on this idea the advice given when eating olives is to always pour a bit of olive oil on them in order to counter any forgetfulness that may occur from eating olives by themselves.

Although it is not clear on what basis the tradition has been passed down regarding the opposite qualities of olives and olive oil, yet a very important lesson can be derived from this phenomenon. Eating olives represents the outside manifestation of the fruit, whereas olive oil is produced by extracting the inner oil of the olive. The terms for an outside and inside reality in Kabbalah and Chassidut are chitzoniut and penimiut, respectfully.

When taking these ideas and applying them to learning Torah, we can deduce that learning on an “outside,” superficial, chitzoniut level, will not penetrate our consciousness and will lead to us forgetting the Torah we learn. On the other hand, when we learn on a deep, “inside,” penimiut level, it is much easier to remember the Torah that we learn as it has been properly integrated and it becomes a part of us.

This same concept can in fact be applied to how we experience reality in general. When we are unfocused, lack concentration and relate to others in a superficial, less than serious manner, our experiences in life itself makes little impact on our emotions and inner consciousness. Yet when we are fully engaged in the moment of experiences leave a deep imprint in mind, heart and soul.