Prof. Menachem Lorberbaum, PhD
- Political Theology
- Jewish Philosophy
- Phenomenology of Politics
- Structures of Legitimacy
In Search of the Sovereign
A troubling lacuna in political reflection is a phenomenology of politics as an activity. Democracies cultivate civil societies in which individuals recognize the political and assume their access to it. Much theorizing about polities, policies and politics assumes the clear and distinct character of the field of action. How is it that we recognize the individuated character of politics as a distinct domain of action: That is to say, bordering on, and intermingling with, religion and economics, but irreducible to them. Such recognition is crucial to the typicality of claims to political agency. The present project seeks to locate formative chapters constitutive of the modern political moment. I focus on the 17th century as a moment of reconfiguration of the sovereign, the sacred and the salvific.
Biography
Vice Dean for Appointments, Humanities Faculty, Tel Aviv University, Israel
Visiting Professor, Faculty of Theology, Pontifical University St. Thomas Aquinas, Rome, Italy
Erika A. Strauss Teaching Fellowship, Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Visiting Professor, Faculty of Theology, Pontifical University St. Thomas Aquinas, Rome, Italy
Head of Bet Midrash Program, Shalom Hartman Institute, Israel
Visiting Professor, Faculty of Theology, Pontifical University St. Thomas Aquinas, Rome, Italy
Graduate School of Philosophy, Chair, Tel Aviv University, Israel
Visiting Professor, Centre de Recherches Historique, EHESS Paris, France
Visiting Professor, Israel Institute, Brandeis University, USA
Lubel Professor of Jewish Studies, University of Oklahoma, USA
Department of Hebrew Culture Studies, Founding Chair, Tel Aviv University
Department of Jewish Philosophy, Tel Aviv University, Israel
Research Associate, Institute for Advances Study, Princeton, USA
Relevant Publications
- Lorberbaum, Menachem. A Theological Critique of the Political: Judaism and Politics. Edited by Sam Brody, and Julie Cooper. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023.
- Lorberbaum, Menachem. "Paradigms of Halakhah in Modernity: Mysticism, Antinomianism, Positivism." In The Cambridge Companion to Judaism and Law, edited by Christine Hayes, 232–59. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.
- Walzer, Michael, Menachem Lorberbaum, and Noam J. Zohar. The Jewish Political Tradition, Vol. 3 Community, co-ed. Madeline Kochen. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018.
- Lorberbaum, Menachem. “Israel's Constitutional Tragedy.” Turou Law Review 29 (2013): 289–94.
- Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan, translated by Aharon Amir, edited, annotated on the basis of the English and Latin editions, and introduced by Menachem Lorberbaum. Jerusalem: Shalem, 2009.
- Lorberbaum, Menachem. "Religion and State in Israel." In Judaism and the Challenges of Modern Life, edited by Moshe Halbertal, and Donniel Hartman, 152–64. London: Continuum, 2007.
- Lorberbaum, Menachem. “Making Space for Leviathan: On Hobbes' Political Theory.” Hebraic Political Studies 2 (2007): 78–100.
- Lorberbaum, Menachem. “Spinoza’s Theological-Political Problem.” Hebraic Political Studies 1 (2006): 203–23.
- Lorberbaum, Menachem. "Making and Unmaking the Boundaries of Holy Land." In States, Nations and Borders: the Ethics of Making Boundaries, edited by Allen Buchanan, and Margaret Moore, 19–40. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
- Lorberbaum, Menachem. "Medieval Jewish Political Thought." In The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Jewish Philosophy, edited by Daniel Frank, and Oliver Lehman, 176–200. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
- Walzer, Michael, Menachem Lorberbaum, and Noam J. Zohar. The Jewish Political Tradition, Vol. 2 Membership, co-ed. Ari Ackerman. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003.
- Lorberbaum, Menachem. Politics and the Limits of Law: Secularizing the Political in Medieval Jewish Thought. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001.
- Walzer, Michael, Menachem Lorberbaum, and Noam J. Zohar. The Jewish Political Tradition, Vol. 1 Authority, co-ed. Yair Lorberbau. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000.
