An ex-Orthodox Jew posts on Jesus

An ex-Orthodox Jew shares his thoughts over at Lubab No More. He obviously has a lot of respect for the guy, though given his reconstruction of the historical Jesus I'm not sure what his sources are. Here's an interesting comment:

Ironically, being raised an Orthodox Jew is quite possibly the best preparation in the world for understanding the Christian gospel. A Protestant Christian can read the New Testament and perhaps imagine to herself the religious philosophy Jesus sought to overthrow. An Orthodox Jew has lived it. (The other side of this irony, of course, is that you can't truly understand Rabbinic Judaism until you've read the gospels.)

I'll leave it to those more knowlegable in New Testament to respond, but do share your thoughts! Interestingly, here's the first comment by No One:

avraham abulfia [kabalist born in 1240] held he was a kind of proto type messiah called messiah son of joseph.this is scattered in his writtings.

The image above, taken from the post, is of Rabbi Hillel. The text he's expounding says: And you shall love your neighbour as yourself. This, of course, was part of what Jesus held to be the "golden rule" (Luke 10:27).

Update: This isn't directly relevant, but Freethinking Upstart has fascinating post on the distinction between (Jewish) orthodoxy and orthopraxy. This is of particular interest to me as a Christian, as in contrast to Jews, we don't ask: "he is a practising Christian," but "is he a believing Christian?" The former without the latter would be an oxymoron. On second thoughts, the latter without the former would also be an oxymoron (James 2:14).