Rav Shach rocks! If you want a date with me, finish the Avi Ezri.

I see there is what looks like a contradiction between the Rambam and the Tosephta and I thought I had an answer, but now I see I don't. I was looking at Rav Elazar Menachem Shach's essay on this subject and I had thought that my idea was what he was getting at but it clearly is not.

The idea is the Rambam says if one ate forbidden fat or remainders of sacrifices he brings a sin offering. But if he forgot which one he does not.

That is lets say someone has a piece of fat on the table and eats it.  Then someone walks in and asks "Where is the חלב forbidden fat I left on the table?" He brings a sin offering.
But let's  say the next day he forgets if it was חלב או נותר forbidden fat or remainders. Then he does not bring a sin offering.
But let's say the day after that he remembers again that it was חלב forbidden fat and then a second later he forgets again. Then he brings a sin offering. And that is where the Rambam stops. But at that point the Tosephta adds if he remembers again then he brings another sin offering.
The commentaries on the Rambam give half baked excuses to make sense of this.
I thought I had an answer but it is wrong.

What I had thought was the Rambam is talking about חלב or נותר, or else he did work either on Yom Kippur or Shabat. And to be frank and admit my fault I had thought the Tosephta was talking about קרבן טומאה. That is I thought the Tosephta was talking about a case in which he walked into the Temple in Jerusalem while unclean or ate from sacrifices while unclean.

What I was thinking was this: The Rambam brings from Rabbi Akiva that there is something special about a sin offering for uncleanliness. That is you need to have knowledge of the uncleanliness before he sinned. That is true.  But I had noted that after he sinned he needs to know what kind of uncleanliness he became unclean by. That also is true. But I had underestimated the need for this second condition. I had thought that in our original case of forgetting that it would be enough if he remembered that he was unclean but still did not know by which kind of uncleanliness. This is
I am sad to say a stupid mistake on my part. But one thing we gain from all this is that now we know why Rav Shach did not choose this path as an answer.

Appendix: The major point of this essay is this: The normal case of a sin offering for walking into the Temple while unclean is unusual. It is a case where one needs knowledge before the sin that he is unclean. That means he knew he was unclean. And then he forgot and in a state of forgetfulness he walked into the Temple. And then the next day he remembers he was unclean or someone reminds him. That still is not enough to be required to bring a sin offering. The last knowledge has to be together with knowledge of what kind of thing made him unclean. This is clearly what the Rambam says. So it would not work to put the case of the Tosephta as a case of uncleanliness.

That is day one he knew he was unclean. The next day he forgot and walked into the Temple. Then day after he remembers he walked into the temple or ate a sacrifice in a state of uncleanliness. He would not bring anything. The reason is this is not like forbidden fat or remainders of sacrifices. Here in our case he needs to know what kind of uncleanliness made him unclean.

That means I think we will have to settle for what Rav Shach says that the Rambam simply had a different version of that Tosephta. This is not a good answer but we can see that no other answer is possible here so we have to settle for an unsatisfactory solution.