in 1967, liebes began his studies at the hebrew university of jerusalem. after earning undergraduate and graduate degrees, he pursued his doctoral research under scholem. scholem gave liebes access to handwritten note cards he had prepared for a lexicon of zohar terminology that he never wrote, and liebes submitted his dissertation on "peraḳim be-milon sefer ha-zohar" (chapters in the dictionary of the book of the zohar) (1976).