AVROHOM YAAKOV
After crossing the Red Sea, the people ran out of food and G-d provided them with Manna which they would collect daily. Except when it came to Shabbos when a double portion arrived on Friday to cover requirements for Friday and Shabbos.
After informing people that during the week they were not to leave over Manna received that day, Moshe announced that on Friday they would need to leave a portion for Shabbos.
Notwithstanding Moshe’s instructions, some people didn’t listen.
“People went to gather (Manna) and they did not find.” (16:27)
The Midrash tells us that the people who left Manna overnight and then went for a looksee on Shabbos were Doson and Avirom, Moshe’s old protagonists.
It is clear from the Torah that these two received their daily portion of Manna. Also clearly they lived within, and protected by, the Clouds of Glory unlike those who were attacked by Amalek. Furthermore, they survived the plague of Darkness that eliminated according to commentators, up to eighty percent of the Jews. They weren’t killed during the Golden Calf incident nor when the Spies turned the Jews against Moshe.
A number of explanations are provided such as Maharil Diskin who suggests that despite their antagonism to Moshe, Doson and Avirom were members of the group of Jewish supervisors who were punished when the Jewish workers did not meet their quotas. They put their bodies on the line to save other Jews from punishment.
The Maharal views Doson and Avirom as playing the evil balancing role against Moshe’s innate goodness.
Along those lines, perhaps we could say that they saw their role as to hold Moshe accountable. Indeed, Doson and Avirom were righteous – they counted Korach, a cousin of Moshe and one of the select few who carried the Holy Ark – as a friend.
They were not sure how much of Moshe’s instructions were from Hashem and how much came from Moshe himself.
(No doubt they remembered him as the Prince of Egypt who killed an Egyptian overseer and concealed the body. They saw Moshe as irresponsible then, placing Jewish lives in danger with his actions. And Moshe’s subsequent behaviour would
