“I don’t believe God cares about pizza,” I admitted, unsure of what his father would say if he heard this conversation. I was afraid too that our respective families, all Orthodox, still expected me to teach our children that religion is where the truth resides.

Raised inside this world, I knew all too well the script I should be following, the lines that would instill in my son the belief that God watches his every deed; God judges even the smallest moments of his life.

“If you don’t believe that, then why do I have to?” my son asked.

In those early months, with the divorce still fresh, I had been cagey with my children about the changes I was making in my life. When they were home with me, I tried to keep much the same, so that the gap between their father’s world and mine wouldn’t seem too vast. I hadn’t yet said to them: I no longer observe the rules with which I raised you. I no longer believe in the truths I instilled in you.

And I have continued to try to bridge this divide as the years pass. The kitchen in my house is strictly kosher. We observe the Sabbath, albeit not with all its particulars and rules. On the weekends when the children are at their father’s house, a few miles from mine but an alternate universe, I drive on the Sabbath and sample nonkosher Thai food and cannolis.

To this day, almost five years later, I wonder which is the greater betrayal: to change course at this late date, or to continue to raise them in a system in which I don’t believe.