There are three halakhic ways to indicate gemirat da’at, finalize intention, ownership from one person to another. If the object is small, all the person has to do is pick it up and carry it four amot. If the object is too big to pick up like a cow, all the person has to do is pull it the four amot. If the object is unmovable like a house or intangible like the conditions written in a ketubah, a kinyan sudar is used. If you been to a traditional Jewish wedding you’ve seen the Rabbi use this type of kinyan with the groom. The rabbi holds one end of the handkerchief or napkin and the groom holds the other end. The groom pulls on the handkerchief and finalizes the acceptance of all the conditions in the ketubah.

On today’s daf TB Baba Metzia 7 we learn that the sudar, the piece of cloth has to be a minimum size of 3x3 fingerbreadths to be used. The Gemara brings a seemingly contradictory baraita to our Mishna and Rav Pappa harmonizes the two sources.

“Rav Taḥalifa from the West, i.e., Eretz Yisrael, taught this baraita before Rabbi Abbahu: If two people are grasping a garment, this one takes up to where his hand reaches, and that one takes up to where his hand reaches, and they divide the remainder, the part of the garment that is in the grasp of neither, equally. Rabbi Abbahu indicated by means of a hand gesture that Rav Taḥalifa should add: And this is with the proviso that they take an oath.

“The Gemara asks: But then how can you find a case where the halakha in the mishna applies? As the mishna teaches that they divide the garment between them, and does not teach that this one takes up to where his hand reaches and that one does likewise. Rav Pappa said: The mishna is discussing a case where neither of them is grasping the garment itself, but rather they are holding onto the fringes [bekarkashta] of the garment. Therefore, each is required to take an oath and they divide the garment between them.”

“Rav Mesharshiyya said: Learn a halakha with regard to the symbolic transfer of a cloth as a formal act of acquisition from Rav Pappa’s statement: The entire cloth need not change hands. Rather, once the recipient of the cloth has grasped three by three fingerbreadths of the cloth, which is the minimum size of a cloth that can be considered a utensil (and can become ritually unready, tamai-gg), the transaction takes effect, as we consider such an action to be an implementation of the verse upon which acquisition by means of a cloth is based: “Now this was the custom in former times in Israel…to confirm all things: A man drew off his shoe, and gave it to his neighbor; and this was the attestation in Israel” (Ruth 4:7).

“This is because such an amount of the cloth is significant enough to be considered as though it were severed from the rest of the cloth, and therefore when the recipient grasps it, it effects the acquisition, even though the rest of the cloth is still in the hand of the other party.” (Sefaria.org translation) (Sefaria.org translation)

A get, a bill of divorce, is different. The woman has to hold it exclusively in her hands with no way the man can retrieve it. The Gemara explains the difference. “There, in the case of a bill of divorce, we require that it accomplish a complete severance between the husband and wife, and as long as the husband continues to have some hold on the bill of divorce there is no complete severance. By contrast, here, in the case of a transaction by means of a cloth, we require an act of giving, and there is a valid act of giving even if only part of the cloth was given.” (Sefaria.org translation)