Why to Study Torah in Small Groups
Anonymous*

For many years, I have studied Torah in all kinds of groups. In big groups, in small groups, with friends, with strangers, with teachers, with students, with adults, and even with children. Now, I almost always prefer to study Torah in small groups.

Meaningful conversations are difficult in large groups. When there are too many people, and almost all of them want to say something, what is there to do? The group gives everyone a turn to say what they want to say. But this causes problems. Every turn brings a new thought. How can every idea be discussed? Impossible. And what happens when many people want to talk at the same time, and they really don’t want to wait? They wait anyway, even when they don’t want to, and when their time comes they speak as if their own ideas are the most important.

Sometimes people want to control the conversation. Why? Some people are egotistic and want to look like rabbis. Some people are lonely and want to feel like they are part of the group, or that they are being heard, or explain the problems in their lives to a captive audience. Are people like this really interested in studying Torah?

Torah Study is therapy when it is sincere and connected to the text. Is Torah Study useful without these things? Is the context fertile?

Historically, Jews didn’t study in large groups. In the yeshivas Jewish students paired off. First the students would read the text out loud, and later ask each other questions about it. They asked each other’s opinions in order to find new perspectives, to develop and clarify findings, before verifying their understandings with the rabbi and hearing the lecture. This is the rabbinic method that has been used throughout history. This is a fertile context both for pairs and small groups of three or four. This smoothest out personality problems. All kinds of personalities are encouraged to study together from a clear goal: to understand.

But there is no clear goal for groups that are too big, outside of prayer, going to lectures, observing military orders and living out prison sentences. It is too easy to get lost.

*The writer asked to withhold name