Keter means crown. A crown rests above the head; it is not the body, but it marks the body as king. So Keter is the first Sefirah, the highest, so high that some have confused it with Ein Sof. The Pardes Rimonim fights this error forcefully: Keter is emanated, it has a beginning; Ein Sof has none. Keter is the first vessel, the one closest to the Emanator; Etz Chaim says that what remains after the first withdrawal of the light forms a single vessel, and that this vessel "is called Keter, for Keter is always close to the Emanator."
Its place in the tree is the top of the central column. It is will, ratzon, before any articulated thought: the desire to give that precedes the plan. Elijah, in the Tikkunei Zohar, calls it "the supernal crown, crown of kingship," and applies to it the verse of Isaiah: "He declares the end from the beginning." The beginning already contains the end; Keter, the highest, is turned toward Malkhut, the lowest. Elijah adds that it is "the skull of the tefillin," karkafta de-tefillei.
Keter does not appear in the verse of Chronicles, which begins with greatness. In the system of the Ari, when Da'at is counted, Keter is left out of the count, for it lies beyond what the intellect can grasp.
The trait to cultivate, according to the Tomer Devorah, is surprising: it is humility. Cordovero explains that humility "depends on Keter," because Keter is "a quality above all qualities" and yet "does not rise and does not exalt itself upward; rather, it descends and looks downward constantly." It is ashamed, he says, to look toward its cause; its Emanator gazes at it ceaselessly to do it good, and it, for its part, gazes at those below. So must a person do: be ashamed to look upward in order to be proud, and always look downward to make oneself smaller as much as one can.
Cordovero then details the concrete gestures of this crown: a thought free of anything ugly, as the thought of Keter is pure mercy; a forehead without harshness, which calms those who grow angry, and to this he attaches the Mishnah: the one with whom people are pleased, G-d is pleased with him; then ears that do not listen to slander; eyes that do not look at what is ugly; a mouth that speaks only good.
Keep this reversal: the highest of the Sefirot teaches to look downward. The crown is not what raises you above others, but what binds you to them.
