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Can a rabbinic kinyan create a valid Torah (תורה)-level divorce or marriage? The Ramban (רמב"ן) and Ran offer starkly different models—one relying on retroactive annulment, the other on rabbinic land transfer. The shiur develops a fundamental chakira: ownership can mean either enforceable legal rights (sufficient for get and kiddushin) or intrinsic metaphysical connection (required only for special mitzvos like lulav).
This shiur analyzes Gittin 78a and the Mishna's ruling that dalet amos (four cubits) constitutes a valid kinyan for both get (divorce) and kiddushin (marriage). The central problem: dalet amos is only a kinyan derabanan (rabbinic acquisition), yet get and kiddushin seemingly require Torah (תורה)-level validity. How can a rabbinic kinyan effectuate Torah-level consequences? The Ramban (רמב"ן) explains that when a woman receives a get through dalet amos, the sages retroactively annul the original marriage through the principle of "kol hamakadesh adas derabanan makadesh"—anyone who sanctifies does so subject to rabbinic conditions. Thus she was never married on a Torah level. This creates difficulties: if she was never truly married, then discovering she committed adultery during the marriage should carry no consequences, and a kohen who marries her should not receive lashes for marrying a divorcée.
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Gittin 78a
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