The Tzaddik's Power: From Our Requests

The Zohar tells how once the world needed rain and Rashbi's students came to him and asked him to help. Rashbi said a Torah on the verse "Hinei mah tov u'mana'im, sheves achim gam yachad" and the rains fell.

We need to understand this story: why did the students need to come to Rashbi, and only then did he say Torah and caused rain to fall. Because every single Jew makes an effort to do what is in his power to do good for the individual and the community, and how much moreso Tannaim and Amoraim, and particularly Rashbi, who said he is able to exempt the entire world from judgement--certainly he did all he could for the good of klal Yisroel. So then why, when the world needed rain (and he was able to cause rain to fall, as we see form the fact that he did so, nonetheless) he had to wait until his students came to him, and only then did he say Torah on the verse and then the rain fell?

It is written "male and female He created them" and then "and G-d blessed them", which means that specifically when there is a recipient (female) is it possible for the blessing to come, which is an unlimited blessing.... From this it is understood [as regards Rashbi] that in order to draw down additional power in the mashpia in order for him to be able to bestow, the recipient must elevate itself towards him.

From this we can also understand why it was his students who came to him, because specifically via his students, who are recipients, coming to him and yearning and asking that he will bestow to them...that via the connection and binding of the recipient with the mashpia, the student and Rav, there is an increase to him, to the mashpia himself. And so, in our case, via the students coming to Rashbi, it caused an elevation in Rashbi himself. And thus specifically when Rashbi's students came to him -- that's when an additional elevation and hamshacha came to Rashbi, resulting in a new revelation in Torah in his explanation of the verse. Through this it was drawn down also to this low world in the form of rain in its simple sense, even to the level of a world which was in a state that even though it needed rain the rain wouldn't fall.

That's why it is always expressed Rashbi and his students, because through this there is a hamshacha and flow in the aspect of Ein Sof.

Lubavitcher Rebbe, Maamar La'g B'omer 5730