Rain for the Individual and Sustenance for the Many

Rabbi Yohanan said: rain comes for the sake of the individual, as it is said, "to give the rain of your land in its season" (Deuteronomy 28:12). Sustenance comes for the sake of the many, as it is said, "Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you." And does sustenance not come for the sake of the individual? But has it not been taught: Rabbi Yose son of Rabbi Yehudah says, three good providers arose for Israel, and so forth? Moses is different, since because he is needed for the many, he is reckoned like the many. "Behold, I will rain bread for you": to you He gives it, and not to every nation and tongue, for if all the nations were to gather to collect of the manna, even a trifle, they would not be able. And I have only the manna; from where do I know the well too? Scripture teaches, "A well that princes dug", for if all the nations of the world were to gather to fill a single jug from the well, they would not be able. "Bread": the manna was called by three names, bread, honey, oil. Bread for the young men, oil for the little ones, honey for the elders. "And the people shall go out and gather a portion day by day." Rabbi Elazar son of Rabbi Shimon said: food enough for two thousand years would come down as manna each day, as it is written, "a portion day by day," and elsewhere it says, "For a thousand years in Your eyes are as yesterday" (Psalms 90:4). If so, why did it come down each day? And what of the surplus? "And when the sun grew hot, it melted" (below, verse 21), because of the burden of carrying it on the way.