Lots of Emacs users find Elisp intimidating. There are at least two aspects to this. First of all, it’s a Lisp. That means that everything looks different and, yes, there are a lot of parentheses. But this is only an apparent problem. The truth is that Lisp is syntactically simple and very easy to learn. The difficulty is learning its run-time library. Every Lisp has a large number of functions but even then it’s pretty easy to learn enough to start using Lisp.
The second problem is that Elisp—which is, after all, short for Emacs Lisp—is specialized for the Emacs environment. That means that it has lots of features that other Lisps don’t need such as buffer local variables. Even programmers familiar with other Lisps can find themselves at sea with Elisp.
Over at Positron’s Emacs Channel, there’s a very nice video, Elisp Idiosyncarsies, that explores some of the peculiarities of Emacs Lisp such as the aforementioned buffer local variables. The video is fast paced but mentions most of the Elisp specific things you need to know to use Elisp effectively. Of course, mastering those idiosyncrasies is going to take a bit more than watching a video but the video gives you an idea where the problems lay.
The video is just short of 17 minutes so you’ll need to schedule some time but if you want to understand Elisp—especially if you’re coming from some other Lisp—it’s a worthwhile introduction.