zahavasdad,
Obviously you dont get my point, A person who is a Kollel person should not just study torah, he should live torah and people should be able to look at them and say What a Kiddush Hashem they are.
Actually, I get your point, and it may surprise you, but I agree.
What I am disagreeing with is your arbitrary definition of a “legal yet still gray” area.
When people have to do things to surive to learn in kollel that are bordering the fence between legal and illegal it does not create a kiddish hashem.
So a while back you stated that a person receiving EBT benefits should not own a nice car. I asked for an explanation and didn’t receive one. You are making the same type of case in this thread, so perhaps you can explain to me now why owning a nice car is a “gray area”?
The ‘Smell good” term was used to describe this greyish area of legal vs illegal
That’s different from what you wrote above. Above, you stated that something could be legal, both from a civil and halachic standpoint, yet still fail some sort of arbitrary smell test. I think we can agree that it’s not a good idea to flirt with illegality, but who gets to be the arbiter of what wholly legal activities smell good or bad? What if I decide one day that Kollel people shouldn’t drive red cars on Interstates, because people who buy red cars must be speeders. Just doesn’t pass the smell test. ?