Earlier, we discussed the life of a slave. There are two steps in his getting freedom: the master's ownership has to stop, and the slave needs to be legally freed in order to become a full-fledged Jew who can marry a Jewish woman.
Therefore, if a slave is declared "ownerless," this is only the first step; he needs to get a written bill of emancipation called Get. However, what about the rule that if a convert – who is like a new legal person, like a child born into the world, and who therefore does not have any legal inheritors – if this convert dies, then his slaves acquire themselves and are moreover become legally free, without a Get? – Death of the owner is different; this is similar to the death of a husband, which frees the wife without a Get.
Likewise, if a slave acquires himself with money, a Get is not required. But what about the following story: a man was dying, and his slave-woman screamed, "Until when will that person (meaning herself) be a slave!?" So he threw her his hat as if saying, "Just as the hat exchanges ownership, so you acquire yourself." They went to Rav Nachman to confirm, and he said, "The man has accomplished nothing." This seems to mean that even though she acquired herself, a formal Get was still required! – Well, that is how people understood it, but they were wrong.
In truth, the problem was that that hat he threw belonged to him. The acquisition that he intended, as any acquisition done by giving a token (like a kerchief) to another, requires that the object belongs to the buyer (her), not the seller (him). So the problem was that acquisition did not happen at all, but not that a Get was needed.
Art: Young Man in a Hat, by anonymous
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