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you who has not had travail, for the offspring of your desolation shall
outnumber those of your settlement…” (Yeshayah 54,1)
Performing a Bris when the Male Organ Serves
no Function
Question: What is the halachah in regard to a baby born with a male
organ that is completely blocked and whose urine leaves the body
from [an opening at] the base of the organ, as is in a female and not
from the organ itself? [No tests have been conducted to see wheth-
er the child has male or female chromosomes.] There is no scrotal
[testicular] sac, neither is it anticipated that testicles will be found
elsewhere. Is such a child a male who should be circumcised on the
eighth day, or since the male organ serves no function at all and seems
to be completely superfluous, no circumcision is necessary for the
appendage is considered mere flesh, not a male organ?
Response: A similar question arose in the time of the Knesses
Yechezkel and of the Yaavetz (171) concerning the following case: A
baby boy was born with a male organ that was cleft from the hole at
the corona [all the way] down to the end of the organ attached to the
body. The entire organ was cleft into two parts and the urine exited
through a cleft in the split in the main part of the organ attached to
the body but not through the organ at all. At the corona…a foreskin
is attached….This baby cannot marry at all, because he cannot de-
velop an erection nor have any kind of intercourse [because he has
no testicles]. This is a truly unprecedented case whose like has never
been heard of or seen. Should a blessing be made on his circumcision?
For the reason for the mitzvah of circumcision is to minimize a per-
son’s pleasure but this child cannot have an erection.
The Knesses Yechezkel responds that the child should be circum-
cised and the blessing should be made, for we do not derive rulings
The Hermaphrodit 2 163
