THE PATERNITY OF AN INFERTILE MALE

curability of a congenital eunuch may indeed reflect modern medical conclusions. This paper has demonstrated that this individual, who was thought to be seriously underdeveloped or deformed in his genitalia, impotent and infertile, may be capable of procreation. It would, therefore, appear that this study has rehabilitated this halakhic teaching of the great Rabbi Eliezer which has been disregarded for nineteen centuries.

Notes

1. b. Yevamot 79b- 80a; j. Yevamot 8:6. There is a later interpretation where hamah is rendered kadahat(fever). A seris hamah is therefore considered to be a"fever eunuch" with a condition resulting from a post natal illness contracted any time after birth. See R. Nathan Yehiel(Rome, 1035-1106). Arukh Complentum, ed. Alexander Kohut , New York ,(undated) volume 3, p 426. The mumps is the best recognized viral infection of the testes, which may, infrequently, be followed by permanent infertility.

2. Referring to the Talmudic sages, Amoraim , expounders of the Mishnah in the third to the fifth centuries C.E.

3. b. Yevamot 80b. See also Tosefta 10:6. We shall note a medical explanation for the smooth, beardless skin and for urinating without an arch.

4. Rashi ad loc.

5. M. Yevamot 8:4. See infra p. 3 and pp. 10-13 for the application of this minority halakhic opinion to a specific case.

6. See HaMeiri, Beit Habehirah,(ed. H. Albeck ), New York , 1947, Yevamot 79b, p. 289. The Tur and the Shulhan Arukh, Even Haezer 172:1 codify in this manner. See Ezra Zion Melamed , Eshnav Hatalmud, Kiryat Sefer, Jerusalem , 1960, p. 85. Others say that R. Eliezer contradicted himself by claiming in M. Niddah 5:9, that the halakhah regarding a saris is according to Beit Hillel, whose position is supported by R. Akiba . See Shlomo Adani ben Bezalel Ashkenazi , Melekhet Shlomo, in Mishnah with fifty-one Commentaries, Torah La-Am, Jerusalem , 1960, p. 5b.

7. b. Yevamot 80a. In view of the fact that this baraita agrees with M. Yevamot 8:4 and also gives proof based on actual experience, it is assumed that R. Eliezer maintained the view recorded in this mishnah and withdrew from the other view attributed to him in M. Niddah 5:9. See Rashi b. Yevamot 80a, s.v. ta shema.

8. M. Yevamot 8:5; J. Yevamot 8:5 baraita. If a eunuch cohabitated with his deceased brother's wife, he disqualifies her for marriage with a priest since such sexual intercourse is of the nature of fornication. It constitutes an incestuous relationship with his brother's wife, not for fulfillment of the mitzvah of levirate marriage.

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