A number of years ago, before Selichos, Rabbi Reisman shlita spoke about Chumras. While he definitely did not advocate following every single chumra you can get your hands on, he did say (and here I am running out of suitable words to accurately and adequately describe what he said), that we say in selichos “al tavo bamishpat imanu”, now, hashem as the shofet, is certainly judging us, so what are we asking. He explained, that we are asking that hashem not sit in strict judgement of us. If we point to the “letter of the law” and say, hey, thats me, always to the letter of the law, then, he will look at us and say, hey, you broke one, the letter of the law says you deserve a punishment. However, if we approach him and say, I know the letter of the law says X, but look, I do more then the strict letter of the law, then hashem looks at us the same way. We are in essence asking hashem, just like we do not go strictly by the letter of the law, but go above and beyond, so to, when you deal with us, ignore the strict letter of the law and cut us some slack, so to speak. We should certainly have some area where we are able to point and make this plea of al tavo bamishpat imanu.
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