Why did the Zohar (Kabbalah) tell us this SHOCKING story?

As the author of <i>Rokeach</i> and others explain, an author of Torah works often hints to his name in the opening words of his book. And indeed, the Zohar begins with the word <i>“B’reish</i>,” an anagrammatized acronym of “Rabbi Shimon Ben Yochai.” The Zohar relates a story: Rabbi Yosi said: Israel was once in need of material blessing, it was in need of rain. Rabbi Shimon brought about the rain through a teaching on the verse “How good and pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together.” This is related in the Zohar, authored by Rabbi Shimon himself. His special power to do this lay in his total and complete devotion to Torah. He attained such a lofty spiritual level that his Torah caused change in the physical world, even against the natural order — there was no rain coming. It took something that could override nature and bring down the rain. In the natural order, God provides the blessing of rain in its season, but sometimes there is a spiritual obstacle to those blessings. Torah instructs that the blessing of rain must then be drawn down through prayer and fasting as is explained in the Talmud, and discussed among <i>halachic</i> authorities. But there are those, like Rabbi Shimon, who achieve the same results through Torah, without any other special requirements, as is clear from the story in the Zohar about Rabbi Shimon Ben Yochai. Now, when it comes to the Torah, we are taught that “it is not in the heavens, far away or out of reach; it is close and attainable – in your mouth, your heart and your actions.” Close to whom? — To you! To every Jew, no matter where or when you find yourself. At first glance, how can such an assertion be made? We all know our true stature; The Talmud states that we cannot even compare ourselves to the last of the Talmudic sages, let alone the earlier ones. And even among those greats, Rabbi Shimon stood out as unique. But the explanation comes back to something we’ve discussed before: As the Tanya teaches: Who do we think we are – to compare ourselves to Moses? Nevertheless, because Moses was the Jewish people’s faithful shepherd, every Jew contains a spark of Moses within, which is alive and active. This explains how we can achieve, albeit in a very small way, something similar to what was achieved by Rabbi Shimon Ben Yochai. Namely, to draw down the material blessings that were needed – as Nachmanides explains in his commentary on the verse “I will give your rains in their season,” “rain” is the source for all the blessings which are then listed in the Torah, which ultimately contain all the material blessings needed – we can attain them in a manner similar to that of Rabbi Shimon, without fasting and so on, but rather with joy through diligent Torah study and especially through an <i>increase</i> in Torah.