This book launches a landmark four-volume collaborative work exploring the political thought of the Jewish people from biblical times to the present. The texts and commentaries in Volume I address the basic question of who ought to rule the community. The contributors--eminent philosophers, lawyers, political theorists, and other scholars working in different fields of Jewish studies--discuss the authority of God, the claims of kings, priests, prophets, rabbis, lay leaders, and gentile rulers during the years of the exile, and issues of authority in the modern state of Israel.