Considered a leading scholar of Kabbalah, his research interests also include Jewish myth, Sabbateanism, and the links between Judaism and ancient Greek religion, Christianity, and Islam.

[2] They had two children, a daughter (Tamar, today head of the Department of Communications at Hebrew University) and a son (Yehuda).

Scholem attended Yehuda's Bar Mitzvah and gave him as a gift Yeshayahu Tishby's book Mishnat HaZohar ("The Wisdom of the Zohar").

[2] In 1965, he enlisted in the Paratroopers Brigade for his compulsory army service, and in 1967, served in the Six-Day War as a non-commissioned officer.

[2] During reserve duty in 1969, he was injured during a Palestinian attack on his post in the Jordan Valley, lost several teeth, and was hospitalized for several months.

In 1977, after he completed his doctorate, they joined the nucleus of the new Israeli settlement of Shilo in the West Bank, living in a caravan near Ofra, but left after nine months.

[4] He has written extensively on "the Zohar, Lurianic Kabbalah, Sabbateanism, Breslov Hasidism and the Gaon of Vilna and his disciples".

[1][2] Challenging the traditional ascription of the Zohar to the 2nd-century disciples of Shimon bar Yochai in Israel, Liebes asserts that a group of 13th-century Spanish Kabbalists, which included Moses de León, composed the work, each reflecting his own approach to Kabbalah.

[2] Liebes angered National Religious Jews in Israel when he claimed to find a Christian allusion in the Amidah, the central prayer of the Jewish liturgy.

[12] He was awarded the 2006 EMET Prize for Art, Science and Culture, in the category of Humanities, for his work on Sabbateanism.