Here’s My Story: Can Kids Like School?

Mrs. Sara Pinson

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In the summer of 1968, the only Jewish girls’ high school in the Bronx closed. My parents, Rabbi Mordechai and Rachel Altein, who served as Chabad emissaries there since the 1940s, decided that my sister and I would attend the Chabad high school for girls, Beth Rivkah, and board with our grandparents in Crown Heights. To say the least, this option was definitely not my choice, but that is what we did.

I had a lot of difficulty adjusting to a big boisterous school. It was hard to make friends, hard to “belong,” and hard to get used to the students’ behavior, which was very different from what I was accustomed to. I called home often to complain. By the end of tenth grade, I had had enough and was determined to leave. My father decided to take me with him for a private audience with the Rebbe. The Rebbe advised that I should not quit something in the middle and that I should stay in Beth Rivkah until the end of high school. I replied that I did not want to do that. But the Rebbe said that while he understood that I did not want to do it, that was what I had to do.

Looking back, I realize that the Rebbe was giving me two very important life lessons: When you start something, you have to see it through to the end. You have to finish and honor your commitment. Secondly, we do not always want to do what has to be done, but that is not a reason not to do it. Once I got into twelfth grade, I was convinced that soon I would be out of my misery. I had many ideas of what I wanted to do next, including college, and any seminary besides Beth Rivkah.

I decided to write to the Rebbe, as my father had always told me to do, as a best friend and as a loving father. But the Rebbe did not answer my very long letter, in which I had literally poured out my heart and shared my dreams for the future.

A few months later, our whole family was arriving at 770 for a private audience with the Rebbe in honor of my brother’s Bar Mitzvah. When the Rebbe’s secretary, Rabbi Leibel Groner saw me, he asked me to come into the office, because he had an answer for me from the Rebbe. By then, so much time had passed that I had almost forgotten that I had written that letter.

To my very great surprise, and to the surprise of my father, the Rebbe’s handwritten answer was several paragraphs long. For a young girl who was just turning seventeen, this was an unusually long response.
After describing why college would not be a suitable option for me, he explained that since I was the one who had experienced all the shortcomings in the school system that I had mentioned in my letter, it was my special mission to correct them. I needed to find the solution and to make sure that children would love school. And this, he wrote, should be done by first acquiring the necessary knowledge and expertise, by being determined, and by not being deterred by cynics.

The letter concludes with the Rebbe’s blessings for success.

All of a sudden, I was no longer a miserable victim who was suffering, but a person with a mission. If I perceived that something was wrong, that meant that G-d was telling me that I was the one who could do something about it. Needless to say, I stayed on in Beth Rivkah, completing my studies in the teachers’ seminary. And the message of that letter accompanies me every day of my life, empowering me whenever I am faced with challenges.

In particular, I put this guidance into practice with the school that I run with my husband. With nearly 400 students, it is vibrant, full of fresh ideas and exciting projects, and highly reputed in France. We try to create a living Jewish experience for our students, most of whom do not come from religious homes, with a high standard of learning. But to us, the important thing is that they come to school each morning with joy and love — because they want to come. This is the mission that the Rebbe set for me: You hated school, so go see to it that children should be happy in school. That’s your job.

The following is an excerpt from the Rebbe’s letter to Mrs. Pinson. The full text can be found in its original Hebrew in Igrot Kodesh vol. 27 p. 524

‘‘It is certainly reasonable (and normal) for a young person to have a thirst for finding a challenge, something new, etc…

‘‘There is a ready challenge for Jewish girls who are like you, which must be overcome. Namely, the shortcomings you mentioned in the atmosphere of the seminaries (and schools in general) which can be fixed, but only by those who have themselves felt and encountered them. However, like any good objective, it requires self-preparation, and to the point of exerting great effort. More specifically: to acquire sufficient knowledge in the subjects that are studied in seminaries, pedagogical expertise, and the firm decision not to be deterred if you don’t experience immediate results, nor to be swayed by naysayers. And after that, to start to change the atmosphere, etc., with enthusiasm and dedication. And G-d Almighty will, no doubt, grant you success.’’

As a Chabad emissary in Nice, France, Mrs. Sara Pinson is the principal of the local Kerem Menachem school. She was interviewed in March 2025.