Was Jesus a great moral teacher?

[sven]

Many unbelievers have said so. I can remember writing down that I still considered Jesus a great moral teacher just at the point where I fully accepted that I had become an agnostic. Quite recently on The Clergy Project a minister who had abandoned his supernatural beliefs posted that he will always be a Christian in his ethics.

A very famous case indeed was Thomas Jefferson. He was a deist and despised Christian theology about atonement through the blood of Jesus and other such topics. He even went so far as to construct his own bible, properly entitled The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, which he made "by cutting and pasting with a razor and glue numerous sections from the New Testament as extractions of the doctrine of Jesus. Jefferson's condensed composition is especially notable for its exclusion of all miracles by Jesus and most mentions of the supernatural, including sections of the four gospels which contain the Resurrection and most other miracles, and passages indicating Jesus was divine." (Wikipedia)

Lately, however, I am no longer so sure that much of Jesus' ethical teaching is practical and useful in life. It seems to me that a lot of it is too extreme for us to follow. I won't say any more at present because I want to hear your responses.

Just one caution, Christianity, especially the Lutheran branch, has a pat response to my complaint of extremism. Yes, they'll say, the ethical teaching of Jesus is perfectionistic because it is intended to show us how far we fall short of the righteousness of God and how much we need forgiveness. I'm simply not interested in hearing any riffs on this theme from Christians. I just want to know if you think the ethics taught by Jesus are realistic and doable.

I don't think they are realistic and doable. For example, Jesus didn't just agree that breaking one of the ten commandments was a sin -- he also said that just thinking about breaking them was a sin. This makes it impossible to follow the ten commandments. A moral teacher who teaches morals that it is impossible to successfully live by, of what use is he?
If you never think about breaking one of 'the ten' you are not human, in my opinion.
This is just one little problem concerning Jesus as moral guru. There are many more.