Religious scholar's brief chat (5)
I believe the answer is:
rabbi
'religious scholar's' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'brief chat' is the wordplay.
'brief' means to remove the last letter (a shorter or briefer version of the word).
'chat' becomes 'rabbit' (I've seen this before).
'rabbit' with its final letter taken away is 'RABBI'.
(Other definitions for rabbi that I've seen before include "Hebrew teacher" , "Blue" , "A Jewish priest" , "Sacks, for example" , "Religious leader of Jewish congregation" .)