Wolfish:
Odd… halacha backwards doesn’t spell anything stronger than that… and I would think it should. After all, Halacha is certainly more stringent than a minhag. 🙂
According to the Kav hayashar, halacha is the letters of “hakallah” (“the bride”, ie the shechina”), and when one works on halacha he strengthens the bond betweeen himself and the shechina.
Many ravs make a kiddush on Shemini atzeres in their sukkahs to be mezakeh the chassidim and amei haaretz.