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passages, tubes and channels for semen and urine?... All we have here
is a definite female with an extra flap of flesh which is an anomaly of
nature but the female organ is in its proper position.”

These opinions can apparently be applied to our case. According to
the Knesses Yechezkel the child must be circumcised because he is a
male, despite the fact that the male organ is solid and he passes urine
like a female, whereas according to the Yaavetz the child is a female
and should not be circumcised.

I asked my father-in-law Rav Y.S. Elyashiv zt”l, what the correct
course of action would have been in the case disputed by the Knesses
Yechezkel and the Yaavetz and here is how I understood his response
to me:

If the male organ is formed like any other male organ and it has
blood vessels and hollows which become swollen and fill up with
a large quantity of blood under high pressure and this happens as
the result of stimulation and the organ becomes enlarged and hard,
making marital relations possible, the child is male. Even if the baby’s
organ is closed, testosterone injections are available today that nor-
malize the entire system. [The Yaavetz wrote,“even supposing that an
expert physician is found who can heal the split and get the two sides
to attach to each other and become one piece of flesh – will anything
new be created, in the shape of passages, tubes and channels for se-
men and urine?” Nowadays, if the organ can be stimulated to make
marital relations possible, the child is a male.] However, if the organ
has not developed normally and lacks the characteristics of a regular
male organ and will be unable to facilitate marital relations, it is likely
a flap of flesh, as the Yaavetz writes. This is what I understood from
my father-in-law zt”l, and I found a similar distinction in the Tiferes
Yisrael (Shabbos 19, Boaz 2).

ɳ Summary and Conclusions

If upon physical examination it is evident that the organ behaves like
a male organ and could fill with blood if it was hollow and not closed,
the child is a male even if he has no testicles. However, if it doesn’t

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