becomes richer every year. it feels like going to somebody s church. third year grad student, vanessa zoltan, finds herself constantly inspired. every year, we have a preaching competition here and more and more beautiful sermons are preached here. but unlike most of her classmates, vanessa has no plans to become a minister in the traditional sense. she s an atheist. everything i wanted to learn even without believing in god was in this space. there s a lot of atheists that would be very uncomfortable in this environment. i just think you mitsdz miss so much if you cross out all of religion. you re not going to understand t.s. eliot let alone the spirituality of thousands of years. vanessa was raised a reformed jew. there were shabbat dinners and say der. there was friday night temple. but without god.