אמר רבה בר בר חנה למה נמשלו דברי תורה כאש שנאמר (ירמיהו כג, כט) הלא כה דברי כאש נאם ה' לומר לך מה אש אינו דולק יחידי אף דברי תורה אין מתקיימין ביחידי
Rabba bar bar Ḥana said: Why are matters of Torah compared to fire, as it is stated: “Is not My word like fire, says the Lord” (Jeremiah 23:29)? To tell you: Just as fire does not ignite in a lone stick of wood but in a pile of kindling, so too, matters of Torah are not retained and understood properly by a lone scholar who studies by himself, but by a group of Sages.
טוֹבִ֥ים הַשְּׁנַ֖יִם מִן־הָאֶחָ֑ד אֲשֶׁ֧ר יֵשׁ־לָהֶ֛ם שָׂכָ֥ר ט֖וֹב בַּעֲמָלָֽם׃
Two are better off than one, in that they have greater benefit from their earnings.
Rachel Adler, The Goals of Chevruta: “The Juxtaposition of Text and Person,”
The chaverim (study partners) do not simply study Bible. . . . The very structure of their relationship and the nature of its boundaries present a Jewish model for the relation between self and other. In this relationship, people experience each other as whole, rather than as fragmented, beings…Self and other are not sharply separate here. To be chaverim is to be neither fused nor counterposed, but to be juxtaposed. The root CH-B-R means to join together at the boundaries. The curtains of the tabernacle, for instance, are chevrot isha elachotah, “joined one to another” Some boundaries are barricades—chain link fences guarded by [watch dogs]. Others are not primarily barricades but loci of interaction. A cell membrane, for example, is part of the living substance of the cell. It is the perimeter at which the cell conducts its interchanges with other cells—the contacts, the flowings in and out, which maintain its life within its environment. The boundary between self and other [in the study partner relationship] resembles this living, permeable boundary…
The chaverim (study partners) do not simply study Bible. . . . The very structure of their relationship and the nature of its boundaries present a Jewish model for the relation between self and other. In this relationship, people experience each other as whole, rather than as fragmented, beings…Self and other are not sharply separate here. To be chaverim is to be neither fused nor counterposed, but to be juxtaposed. The root CH-B-R means to join together at the boundaries. The curtains of the tabernacle, for instance, are chevrot isha elachotah, “joined one to another” Some boundaries are barricades—chain link fences guarded by [watch dogs]. Others are not primarily barricades but loci of interaction. A cell membrane, for example, is part of the living substance of the cell. It is the perimeter at which the cell conducts its interchanges with other cells—the contacts, the flowings in and out, which maintain its life within its environment. The boundary between self and other [in the study partner relationship] resembles this living, permeable boundary…