AI Summary
5 min readThe 300 Club: How Five Minutes a Day Opens Torah to Everyone
Etan Epstein was driving on the highway when the name popped into his head: the 300 Club. Three hundred seconds—five minutes. That was the entire commitment he was asking of people who had never studied Torah daily, many of whom had never studied Torah at all. The program started almost by accident. About four years ago, Epstein was having dinner with a friend named David Mann, and they were talking about Shabbat—how they kept it, but whether they actually studied it. Epstein said, almost offhand, "Why don't we just do five minutes a day on the phone?" They started in fall 2022, just the two of them. By Purim, Mann asked if they could prepare for the holiday together. By Pesach, Mann was taking notes for the first time in six months. "I got to come to the Seder prepared," he told Epstein. "That's when the light went off in my head," Epstein recalls. "There are definitely other guys that would do this."
The Mechanism: Personalization Without Dilution
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What you'll learn
- 1 (03:01) **Introduction and the Concept of Gradual Change** - David introduces the episode theme of Teshuvah and the power of slow, consistent growth as modeled by Rabbi Akiva's dripping water, not just the burning bush.
- 2 (13:05) **The 300 Club Origin Story** - Etan Epstein explains how a single five-minute phone call to study Shabbos with a busy community member became an accidental movement.
- 3 (18:18) **Scaling Beyond the Modern Orthodox Bubble** - Etan describes how the program organically expanded to include Jews of all backgrounds, and why the same content works for everyone.
- 4 (20:16) **The One-on-One Relationship Model** - Etan explains why the 300 club is gender-separate and why the personal relationship is the core of religious growth.
- 5 (27:26) **Defending the Depth of the "Five-Minute" Torah** - David presses Etan on how he reconciles teaching "basic" content with his own yeshiva community's high standards.
- 6 (31:49) **The Pain and Purpose of Fundraising** - Etan reveals why the 300 club is free and how he reframes the difficulty of asking for money as a spiritual opportunity.
- 7 (36:53) **How the Program Changed Etan's View of the Jewish People** - Etan describes a personal shift from seeing labels to seeing souls on fire.
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Show Notes
Join Talmud Daily! A new free program from 18Forty. Ten-minute episodes a day (video + audio). Plain English. No prior knowledge assumed. No Hebrew required. Join here: Talmuddaily.org
In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, we talk to Rabbi Etan Epstein, the founder of The 300 Club, a program of committing to learning Torah for five minutes a day.
We also speak with two participants in the program, Richard Weissberg and Susan Sorosky.
In this episode we discuss:
—How does one begin a path of Torah learning?
—How can we avoid burning out and maintain consistency on our learning journey?
—Why are Torah and repentance so intertwined together?
Interviews begin at 8:56.
Tune in to hear a conversation about how the process of interpretation of Torah is a mirror image of a process of interpretation of the self.
Rabbi Etan Epstein studied at Yeshivat Shaalvim after graduating from Ramaz, before earning his B.A. from Yeshiva University and spending three years at Beth Medrash Govoha in Lakewood. He then spent seven years studying at the Brisker Kollel in Israel, developing a deep expertise in analytical Torah learning. After returning to the U.S. in 2016, Rav Etan settled in Monsey and founded the New Rochelle Torah Center, where he became known for his thoughtful, engaging, and inspiring classes. In 2023, he founded the 300 Club, dedicated to helping every Jew experience the depth and beauty of Torah every day, five minutes at a time.
References:
“Mirror, Mirror of The Fall” by Maureen Dowd
The 300 Club
Mesillat Yesharim
Sefer HaChinukh
Psalms 27
Lamentations 3
Pirkei Avot
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