vayeilech

In one of the most famous Haftoras we read, the navi states שובה ישראל עד ה' אלקיך , “Return Israel to Hashem, כי כשלת בעונך for you have stumbled through your iniquity.” The gemara in Yuma (86a) says: א"ר לוי גדולה תשובה שמגעת עד כסא הכבוד שנאמר: שובה ישראל עד ה' אלקיך. R' Levi says, “great is repentance for it reaches the heavenly throne, as it states, ‘return Israel to 'ה.

The לקח טוב brings our attention to the following question. Why does the gemara expound the greatness of repentance from navi, a posuk in הושע, when last week's parsha explicitly states, ושבת עד ה' אלקיך ושמעת בקולו, And you will return to 'ה and listen to His voice. This posuk also contains the same words עד ה' אלקיך which are the words from which we learn that repentance reaches the heavenly throne.
Wouldn't it be better to learn from a posuk in the Torah that one in navi?

The לקח טוב brings an answer based on an event that happened to ר' סעדיה גאון. Once ר' סעדיה was being hosted by someone who didn't know who he was & nonetheless treated him graciously & with the utmost respect. When the host found out that his guest was ר' סעדיה, he ran to him to beg forgiveness for not treating him properly. ר' סעדיה said to him, “What are you talking about? You treated me like royalty. The host said yes, but had I known who you were, I would have treated you even better.

When ר' סעדיה heard that, he said that if this person is asking me forgiveness for not treating me yesterday in accordance with the knowledge he has today, I have to learn from him & ask forgiveness to 'ה, for today I recognize His greatness more than yesterday, while yesterday I only honored Him according to its recognition & not today's.

From that day on ר' סעדיה did teshuva every day for not honoring 'ה enough the day before.

So answers ר' שלום ברנד to our previous question. From the posuk in the Torah, I might only know that a lofty type of teshuva like ר' סעדיה's, which is not a sin to the average person, reaches the heavenly throne However, perhaps teshuva on real sins doesn't.

Therefore, the gemara uses the posuk in navi since it ends כי כשלת בעונך, for you have stumbled through sin, which shows it's talking about actual sin. That, too, reaches the heavenly throne.

Most of us cannot comprehend that kind of recognition of 'ה. What, then, can we learn from ר' סעדיה ? Maybe that his recognition of 'ה wasn't an instant revelation but a constant growth, a little bit more each day.
The חפץ חיים explains that's how we have to go about doing teshuva, too, which he demonstrates with a mashal.

There was a merchant from a small town who came to the big city to buy goods. He came to the wholesaler from whom he usually bought & placed a large order for all kinds of goods. After the wholesaler put the order together, he gave the merchant the bill which was quite large. The merchant asked that it all be put on account, for he didn't have enough money; he promised to come pay it shortly.

The answer was NO! “This is not the first time you tried this. We have given you credit before & you didn't pay. You are no longer trustworthy.”

The merchant pleaded with him, “please I need to put food on the table. Those were extenuating circumstances & it won't happen again.” They argued back & forth until a man came in, listened to both sides & said, “I have a way that could work for both of you.” He turned to the merchant & said, “why are you buying so much at once? It's much more than you can afford. Why don't you just take a small order that you could pay for now & when you sell that, you'll come back & get more?” The merchant heeded his advice and bought a small amount that he could pay for. He sold that & then came back & bought more; each time being able to buy a little more than he did before until he was very successful.

So, too, by teshuva. We tend to take upon ourselves way more than we can handle. We promise 'ה that we're going to do a complete about face & change our ways and then we change nothing. We should just take on one small thing that we could handle & after that, take on another small thing. By following this pattern we will be able to succeed one step at a time, so that by doing so we will ultimately change ourselves for the better, enabling us to do a complete teshuva bringing us closer to 'ה!