W.O.W., you can’t go back in time and change things that were, you can only do what you can do today, tomorrow and in the future. You did all you could at the time and even consulted with your son at the time. He knows this and is really not blaming you for his pain. But you are the easy targets, you are the ONLY SAFE TARGETS. Believe me he is blaming himself too, and if he blames himself any more he might do something to punish himself. He is carrying enough of a burden, it is better for him to lash out at a safe target. He can’t possibly not ask himself why he didn’t stand up for himself, why he didn’t lash out at the bullies or why he didn’t answer back to the R”Y and tell him what he really thought of him, or why he didn’t listen to you and allow you to switch him into a different yeshiva where maybe there would have been a mentch at the head.
Who knows what is going on in his head? What if he feels like a failure and that he doesn’t deserve your love and your care? What if he feels that he let everyone down including Hashem and all he deserves is to live on the streets with other kids who gave up? What if he thinks this is all he is good for or good at? Or he doesn’t want you to put any more effort into him or pay any more money to yeshivas for him because it is a waste of good money? Or he wants to try everything that the R”Y said was not allowed because he was a hypocrite so he will do everything against HIM? Or he will doing everything to become the “bad kid” the R”Y claimed he was?
There is no way of knowing what he is thinking, only when he lashes out and you get a glimpse of his pain. Even when most of the things he says he doesn’t mean, there is always a bit of the truth that slips out with the bravado and garbage. You have to sort through it to get those little glimpses into his soul. How utterly sad that this is happening to him and to all of you. How utterly avoidable this entire parsha is.
It is heartbreaking when he tells the rest of you not to bother to daven. It is the worst possible feeling in the world to lose your bitachon and emunah. Nebach this poor neshoma, how absolutely lost he must feel without an ounce of bitachon or emunah. The only time I felt like that was when my father died and I felt that Hashem snatched him away from me. It was the most horrendous feeling in the world. It was as if the earth was gone beneath my feet and literally like I lost my footing. I don’t ever, ever want to feel that way again.