English: “and you will return unto Hashem your God” — there is no return except unto Hashem. “with all your heart and with all your soul” — this teaches that a person must be restored in complete repentance, not half-repentance.
The language of return is intensified: the preposition “unto” and the doubled “all” are taken as requiring full, undivided teshuvah.
Type of Learning
Custom (phrase-by-phrase or midrashic expansion of the verse).
What Is Learned
The midrash extracts concrete legal, historical or theological referents from the wording of the passuk, giving the brief biblical language a fuller operational meaning.