“My son admits being angry with us, but blames it on us having moved to Israel when he was young. I know he was bullied in school here many years ago, which must have been a trauma for him…. And since we are all religious, he has concluded unfortunately that religion itself has betrayed him.”
WOW,
I am going to say some harsh words, but I feel that they may be useful.
After spending 2 hours reading through much of this thread, I felt knots in my stomach many times. Not because of your son’s OTD, but because of all the abuse he took, time and time again.
It seems to me that your son views many so-called religious people as a bunch of hypocrites. Your son might have been bullied by one only kid, but no one did anything about it. I personally think that the bully had willing active accomplices in school. Furthermore, the bully definitely had passive accomplices, including the rebbes at school, fellow students, and his parents. None of whom seem to have done anything to protect him. You told how his R”Y set him up for failure and then kicked him out.
Life at home wasn’t much better. His father was a very tough on him (like in shul on Shabbat) and his mother cared too much about what the neighbors say (you wrote a lot about dressing black and white and fitting in with the neighborhood).
So what is there to do? I raised this question 2.5 years ago, and I still don’t have an answer. But lemme try.
– Maybe apologize for whatever you’ve done wrong. From what I gathered, in your conversations with him, no one is willing to give in. Everyone holds their ground.
– Show more concern for his friends. You showed a lot of disdain for them. They are Jewish children also from grieving parents. You seem to just call them the kids on the street. Your son is one of them. Every time you talk bad about them, you are talking bad about your son.
WOW, I’m sorry if I hurt you. I don’t want you hurt. I want the cycle to end.