Malkhut, kingship, is the tenth and last Sefirah, at the bottom of the central column. Elijah calls it "the mouth," and adds: "we call it the Oral Torah." It is the speech through which everything that precedes becomes audible, the world as it receives G-d. The verse of Chronicles names it last: "Yours, L-rd, is the kingship." The Talmud reads: "the kingship, this is the war of Amalek," the battle in which the kingship of G-d shows itself in history. The Psalm says: "Your kingship is a kingship of all worlds."
Malkhut is also the Shekhinah, the Presence that dwells below, the Bride, the moon that has no light of its own. Etz Chaim calls it "the mirror that does not shine," for "it has nothing of itself": everything comes to it from Yesod. This poverty is its greatness: because it has nothing, it can receive everything and give everything to the world. Its figure is David. The Pardes says it: "Malkhut is called David, because David, from the side of Malkhut, became a chariot for this measure"; he repaired it "by seeking it at dawn with his songs and his psalms." The Ohr Ne'erav sums up: "David: Malkhut." David is the king who calls himself poor, the sinner who returns.
The Tomer Devorah devotes to Malkhut a rich chapter, and it begins with poverty of heart. "First of all: let his heart not grow proud over all that he has; let him always hold himself as a poor man, and stand before his Creator as a beggar who asks and pleads." Even if rich, let him think that nothing he owns is attached to him, that he is destitute and constantly in need of the Creator's mercy. Above all at the time of prayer, he adds, "this is a wonderful virtue."
Second path, drawn from the Zohar: to go into exile from place to place for the sake of Heaven, and thus become a chariot for the Shekhinah who is in exile. Third: the fear of G-d, "the gate of the whole service." Cordovero distinguishes the fear of punishments, which comes from the husks, from true awe, which is born of four thoughts: the greatness of the Creator, His presence watching you, the fact that He is the root of all souls, and the harm that a sin causes by separating the King from the Queen. Then he teaches how to keep the Shekhinah with oneself through one's conduct toward one's wife, and teaches: whoever wants to be united with the King's daughter must first adorn himself with all the preceding qualities, and "at once she is married to him and no longer parts from him."
Keep David's measure: kingship begins with poverty of heart. The true king is the one who knows he has nothing of his own and that everything he passes on comes from above. Malkhut is your mouth: what you do with it decides what the world receives.
