Two Paths One Pure One Impure and the Awareness of Doubt

Our Rabbis taught: There were two paths, one ritually impure and one pure. He walked along the first and entered the Sanctuary, then was sprinkled, repeated the sprinkling, and immersed; afterward he walked along the second and entered — he is liable. But why? It is only an awareness of doubt. Rabbi Yochanan said: Here they treated an awareness of doubt as a definite awareness. And Reish Lakish said: Whose view is this? It is Rabbi Yishmael, who said we do not require awareness at the outset. And one raised a contradiction between one ruling of Rabbi Yochanan and another, and between one ruling of Reish Lakish and another. For it is taught: If he ate a doubtful piece of forbidden fat and became aware, and again a doubtful piece of forbidden fat and became aware — Rabbi says, and so forth, up to: "concerning his error which he erred," the Torah included many errors but only one suspensive guilt-offering. And Reish Lakish said: Here Rabbi taught that an awareness of doubt divides into separate sin-offerings. And Rabbi Yochanan said: just as a definite awareness divides into separate sin-offerings, so an awareness of doubt divides into separate suspensive guilt-offerings. Now there is no difficulty with Rabbi Yochanan against Rabbi Yochanan: here they treated it as definite, but they did not do so for the entire Torah. Here, where awareness is not written explicitly but comes only from the word "and it was hidden," they treated an awareness of doubt as definite; but not for the entire Torah, where it is written "or if it come to his knowledge" (Leviticus 4:28), for there we require a full and proper awareness. But as for Reish Lakish, instead of establishing the teaching according to Rabbi Yishmael, let him establish it according to Rabbi. This teaches us that Rabbi Yishmael does not require awareness at the outset. But this is obvious, since he holds one liable for a forgotten state of impurity and a forgotten state of the Sanctuary, which shows that the verse is not superfluous to him. You might have said that, although he does not derive it from the verses, he holds it from tradition; therefore it teaches us otherwise.