I know a lot of people are intimidated by Torah study. "I don't know anything." "I don't want to ask something stupid." "I don't know where to start." But today I told someone that ideally we mismatch people in study groups: different backgrounds, knowledge, learning types.

Because that difference is what drives us on to have to strengthen our own opinions and views and expand our knowledge. Tuesday, I picked the reading to end Elul on. I grabbed masechet Chagiga. I love it. I know a lot of it. I reread it. But someone asked a question about a line

that they had no idea what it meant. And just someone asking to have it explained, I immediately parsed a lot of allusion and thought. I never had thought about it like that. But being asked, that's what it took. I had to organize my mind to explain it and in doing so I learned.

So that's what I have to say when people are nervous about starting a little study group. Friendship and difference is more importantly than being a high level expert.