Safeguards One form of
chumra is a precaution to help avoid transgressing
Halakha, or else a way of keeping those who have taken on the stringency separate from those who have not. This follows the recommendation made by the
Great Assembly, recorded in
Pirkei Avot 1:1 of the
Mishnah, for
Torah scholars to "make a fence around the
Torah", which
the Rabbis considered implied by
Leviticus 18:30. Nevertheless,
Nachmanides urged his audience to understand that such "safeguards" were of
Rabbinic origin, not
Tanakhic origin.
Stringencies A second meaning of
chumra is simply a stricter interpretation of a halakhic ruling when two or more interpretations exist. Those who adopt greater stringency than the normative
Halakha do not feel they are adding to the
Halakha. Instead, they think they are following the baseline requirement (if the strict interpretation is correct) or at least 'covering their bases' (if it is impossible to determine whether the strict or lenient opinion is correct). Nevertheless, such stringency may be seen as adding to
Halakha by someone who believes the lenient—or ()—interpretation is correct. In many cases, a rule followed by the majority (or even the totality) of halakhically observant Jews today is a stringency compared with more lenient rabbinic opinions that have existed in the past or continue to exist today. ==Risks and dangers==