Malchus (מלכות) — Kingship

Core definition

Malchus, the tenth and lowest of the sefiros, is the middah of kingship and sovereignty — the dimension of the Divine that rules, speaks, and creates. It is the "end of all levels" (סופא דכל דרגין) [31674/maamar_026 :: §142]. What makes it unique in the corpus is a striking structural claim: only Malchus, not the higher sefiros of Chochmah or the middos of Ze'ir Anpin, carries the power of coming-into-being from nothing to something (התהוות יש מאין). The higher sefiros operate only in the aspect of cause-and-effect hishtalshelus (עלה ועלול); the leap from nothing to something happens specifically through Malchus [31674/maamar_026 :: §132–137]. This is the meaning of "their beginning is wedged in their end" (נעוץ תחלתן בסופן): the highest point of the chain is lodged in its lowest link [31674/maamar_026 :: §138–142].

How the Rebbeim develop it

The Rebbeim return to Malchus from several directions — cosmological, liturgical, and historical.

Cosmology: the mother of creation. Just as physical growth comes from the earth rather than the heavens, so "above," created being comes into existence specifically through Malchus [31674/maamar_026 :: §132–136]. The souls of Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah — the "souls called servants" — likewise come into being from the Malchus of Atzilus in the aspect of yesh me'ayin [31674/maamar_026 :: §143–144]. The worlds' formation is "specifically from the aspect of Malchus," because the whole of creation flowed from the primordial thought "I shall rule" (אנא אמלוך) [58836/maamar_001 :: §40–41].

Malchus without a people. A king without a people has none to rule over: Malchus inherently faces the "other" — hence "name" (שם) is the aspect of Malchus, "a king, his name is called upon them," and the entire concept of a name exists for the sake of the other [58836/maamar_001 :: §69–71]. Yet Malchus is not merely a product of creation: it existed before the world was created, as the middah of Malchus among the ten sefiros of Atzilus — even before it was drawn down to rule over the separate created beings of the lower worlds [58836/maamar_001 :: §75–76].

The crowning on Rosh Hashanah. The main matter of Rosh Hashanah is drawing the kesser of Malchus: all the souls of Israel gather and accept His kingship in the essence of the soul (where all are equal — intellects differ, but in kabbolas ol all are one), and thereby "crown Him" [58836/maamar_001 :: §29–37]. The Mishnah's "say before Me malchiyos so that you make Me King over you" is this crowning act [58836/maamar_001 :: §38].

Malchus and revelation. In Malchus the light is most contracted — its letters become a concealing garment — until an extremely contracted light can bring about the yesh of the lower worlds [58846/maamar_007 :: §20]. The yichud of Ze'ir Anpin and Malchus is the shining of the revelation of Divinity into the letters of Malchus, down into the worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah [58846/maamar_007 :: §21]. The Mishkan — "My pledge is with you" (משכנא דילי גבייכו) — is the aspect of Malchus/Shechinah, and in the Beis HaMikdash, the seat of that yichud, there was the revelation of ohr Ein Sof itself [58846/maamar_007 :: §13–17].

History: Mashiach ben Dovid. The building of Malchus in the final exile will be through Mashiach ben Dovid, whose kingship endures eternally ("Dovid, king of Israel, lives and endures"). In the interim Malchus is in ascents and descents, filling and lacking — like the moon, which has nothing of its own, since Dovid's life is borrowed from Adam HaRishon [15739/maamar_008 :: §17–28]. "The increase of hamisrah (rule)" is the revelation of the inwardness of Binah within Malchus [15739/maamar_008 :: §10–11].

The single point and the essence. Malchus was emanated as a single point (נקודה אחת), the reason being tied to its root: its source is from the aspect of the Awtsmoos of the Ein Sof, which is above the aspect of revelation [15739/maamar_008 :: §66–72]. The woman's power of bearing — the power of innovation, of producing something new — likewise flows from her root in Malchus [31674/maamar_026 :: §148].

Key distinctions

Related concepts

Sources