Thank you for the snapshot of today's Judaism. I would agree that a contemporary Jew would not share the same faith as a Christian, but I can't assume that their faith is the same as the OT righteous. Of course we have so many advantages over those in the OT in terms of knowledge, I'm not sure it's fair to compare them on the same scale. We know that today's Jews openly reject Christ, but I don't think we can know that about Moses, David, Elijah, etc.
One more interesting aspect is the Jewish concept of the Nature of God. One of these is that God is neither male nor female. As one rabbi said, God has no genitalia. Yet, liturgical Judaism uses the phrase "Avinu Malkeinu," ("our Father, our King.")
I would agree with the Jews here, in that "God" is neither male nor female. "He" is all of both. :) It certainly is reasonable to me that Jesus appeared as a man given the time period and His mission. God appears to have wanted us to refer to Him as "Him", so I have no problem with that, but I don't think His essence is purely "male".
Oh but I do! The OT righteous did not believe in Three Persons united in one Divine Essence (Nature) in a perfect loving community that we know as God(head). The post-Jamnia Judaism (derivative of Pharisees) doesn't either.
Our faith is defined by Christology. We believe that God's Word became Incarnate and was born of the Virgin, and suffered and died for our sins, and was buried, and resurrected on the third day, and sits to the right side of the Father, and shall return to judge the living and the dead. And in the Holky Ghost (Spirit), who proceeds from the Father, who together with the Father and Son is worshiped (as one God).
The Jews know God through the Law; we know God through Christ. The most important difference is that Judaism does not believe man needs to be saved. We do. Judaism believes that God made us capable of saving ourselves by works, and thus making ourselves, as obedient children, acceptable to God. We believe we are made acceptable to God through His grace. Your Calvinist friends believe some are acceptable because they were pre-destioned from all eternity to be acceptable. That is not Judaism, OT or post-Jamnia!
Messianic anticipation in Judaism did not begin until about a century before Jesus was born. Prior to that, the Jews did not expect a meshiach (messiah). The interpretations of the Tanakh (the Five Books of Moses) of an "anointed" one (a mortal human) who would restore the disintegrated Kingdom of Israel (Jewish kings of at the time of Chrust, as well as the High Priests, were Roman appointees; to wit: Octavian, Ceasar Augustuis, appointed Herod as king; Pontius Pilate, a governor of occupied Israel, appointed Joseph Chaiphas as High Priest; they were Roman puppets). The meshiach (messiah), which does not mean "savior" but the "anointed [by God]," a title bestowed to all kings on the kings of the fallen Kingdom of Israel, never meant anything even closely resembling our definition of Christ, the Greek term also meaning "anointed," which morphed into "Savior," and the "Son of God." So, neither etymologically, not spiritually, does the Hebrew word "meshiach" (messiah) correspond to what the Christians made of it later on.
The OT righteous did not expect the savior because Judaism does not expect one. The OT righteous did not even expect a meshicach because of the historical time frame in which they lived. Messianic mindset began to grown after the Babylonian Captivity and the fact that the Jews were once again not free. If anything, the Jews from about 500 BC onward could have believed only in God's mercy to send them a new Moses, someone who would deliver them from the oppressors, and who would re-establish the Kingdom(of Israel), first and foremost. As time passed, that expectation grew into a mythical belief that the meshiach will establish peace on earth and be the one who will make the God of Abraham known to all so that they may convert to Judaism (i.e. believe in the same God).