465. More Than Four Corners?

Tzitzis 3:3

“The four corners of your garments” (Deuteronomy 22:12) includes a four-cornered garment and excludes a three-cornered garment. You might ask that maybe it includes a four-cornered garment and excludes a five-cornered garment? The Torah continues, “with which you cover yourself,” which comes to include even a garment of five corners (or more). Why include five corners and exclude three corners when neither has the four corners mentioned in the verse? Because a five-cornered garment has four corners (it just happen to have others, as well). Therefore, when attaching tzitzis to a garment with five or six corners, the tzitzis should only be attached to the four farthest corners, as per “the four corners of your garments.”

Tzitzis 3:4

If a cloth garment has corners of leather, it requires tzitzis. If a leather garment has cloth corners, it does not require tzitzis. The issue is the material of the actual garment. A garment that belongs to two partners requires tzitzis, as per Numbers 15:38, “On the corners of their garments.” “Your garments” in Deuteronomy 22:12 excludes a borrowed garment, which does not require tzitzis for thirty days; after that, it does.