Introduction

Why Luxury Matters

Luxury is a controversial word, to be sure. To the envious, it suggests waste, arrogance, and the shallow indulgence of the nouveaux riches. To the cultivated, it speaks of refinement, and the just rewards labor. Yet in Jewish thought, luxury has never worn the horns of sin. On the contrary: when approached with awareness and gratitude, it becomes a beacon of light, source of pleasure and fulcrum of change.

 

Luxury as Good for the World 

Luxury is not only about jewels, yachts, or designer clothing. It is about the countless jobs and skills behind them. A single handbag involves designers, artisans, and retailers. A luxury hotel employs architects, chefs, musicians, and staff. What looks like extravagance on the surface is often an economic lifeline for many. Kindly consider the preservation of traditions. Hand embroidery, wine-making, silversmithing, and couture sewing survive because luxury values them. Without luxury, much of the world’s artistry would disappear.

Luxury as Joy and Beauty 

The Torah, contrary to the sour puss faces of puritans, never commanded life to be drab. It commanded joy!!! Serve the Lord with joy (Psalms 100:2), it says, not with austerity. Festivals were designed for feasts and wine, for music and fine clothing. In Judaism, beauty and joy are not distractions from holiness; they are its most natural partners.

The Kabbalists went further still. For them, beauty was never trivial; it was spiritual. The sefirah of Tiferet, harmony, splendor, beauty stand at the very heart of creation’s architecture. Some even taught that physical beauty is not vanity at all, but a reward for mitzvot performed in lives gone by. Seen in this light, luxury is not excess but resonance of a reflection of the divine. To celebrate beauty with awareness is not to betray holiness but to deepen it. 

Luxury as Responsibility

 True luxury is never just about self. It is about what overflows. A lavish Shabbat table that feeds guests, a wedding that uplifts a community, or a donation that builds a synagogue or hospital — these are mitzvot of abundance. Luxury that is shared becomes holiness.

 

 

The Mission of This Book

L.I.A.M.—Luxury is a Mitzvah—suggests something both simple and shocking to the pious ear: luxury is not the enemy of spirituality; it can be its ally. Strip away the clichés of gilded vulgarity, and what emerges is a deeper truth. Real luxury sustains livelihoods. It preserves fragile arts. It uplifts communities. At its best, it sanctifies the small theater of daily life.

 Our tradition is not silent on the matter. The Torah reveres craftsmanship in the building of the Tabernacle. The Talmud insists that joy and dignity belong to holiness. The Kabbalists saw sparks of the divine in silver, silk, and the beauty of form. Each points to the same conclusion: beauty and devotion are not rivals but partners.

 This is not only written on ancient parchment. From the mosaics of forgotten synagogues to the ateliers of modern fashion houses, the impulse is the same: to elevate matter into meaning, to transform excellence into offering. Handled with awareness, luxury ceases to be indulgence and becomes mitzvah; a gesture of reverence for God and for man. Humanity, created in God’s image, imitates the Creator when it fashions art, luxury, light, and sparks of goodness.

 Luxury matters. It matters to the economy, certainly; but it also matters to culture, to the essence of the soul, and yes, to God Himself. To dismiss it as frivolity is to misunderstand its role. Luxury is civilization at its most disciplined and most artful.

 This book is an invitation to reclaim beauty, refinement, and joy—not as idle indulgences but as sacred duties.

 As the founder of the Luxury Chamber of Commerce, I have seen this mission come alive. Our work is to provide quality networking events and to build a community within a community—conjoining philanthropists with non-profits and luxury brands. My personal mission is simple: to enjoy a life of fun and culture, and to be remembered for creating and sharing long-lasting connections in business, the arts, and philanthropy. This book reflects that vision. It is not theory alone; it is a call to live luxuriously with purpose, to weave culture and kindness together, and to see luxury itself as mitzvah.

About the Author 

Jay Shapiro was born in 1972, north of Minnesota’s Iron Range, where pine trees outnumber people and rock ’n’ roll still echoes through the woods. He entered the world to the sound of Led Zeppelin. His mother, Dawn Eve, was a wild beauty whose looks drew modeling scouts in the Twin Cities. They t1ook her to New York, and into the orbit of Buddy Jacobson, the notorious horse trainer turned modeling agency boss.

 She lived in the model’s penthouse, turned down a supporting role in Taxi Driver, and walked away when Buddy’s love triangle ended in blood and headlines. She left without looking back.

 Jay grew up on the road, sixteen schools in scattered towns. His mother traded glamor for gurus and taught him about Paramahansa Yogananda and peace of mind. But it was his grandmother, Faith, who gave him roots. She ran a bar, shot bears when necessary, and slipped him candy and beer in adolescence. She told him they were German Jews, and she meant it with pride.

 1989 – Chicago

 An invitation shifted his life. Aunt Lou, owner of Paparazzi Ristorante and entertainment complex in suburban Chicago, asked him to move in and help with his great-grandmother. He said yes. Paparazzi had waterfalls, bridges, murals flown in from Italy, and menus with no prices. Upstairs was Toto’s nightclub, downstairs a lounge for rock stars, with banquet rooms that saw magicians, mobsters, and CEOs. Even David Crosby stopped in.

 Aunt Lou had bought the venue from her ex-husband, Marshall Brodien — Wizzo the Wizard from television, who performed for the Chicago Outfit and sold millions of TV Magic Cards. Jay met the world there: Italian food, culture, and the underbelly of showbiz. For a kid from the north woods, it was an education.

 1994 – Latin Love

 One night at Amelia’s nightclub in St. Paul, with the Latin Sounds Orchestra playing, Jay met Judy from Peru. Her family owned coca leaf land in the Andes, but she had escaped to Minnesota. Jay fell for her, for her culture, for the music. They married, divorced, but the Latin beat stayed with him. He learned Spanish by ear and heart.

 1997–1998 – Venezuela

 After the divorce, he moved to Venezuela. A former student helped him find work as an English professor at Universidad de Los Andes. For a year he taught and absorbed the language. Then he noticed something. In a city overflowing with Italian families and restaurants, there was no Italian newspaper. He returned to Minnesota in December 1998 with a plan.

By 1999, Mondo Italiano was born. Not just a newspaper but a tribute to his historical background, passions, and to everything Italian he loved and admired.

 2000 – Olive Oil

 Culture led him into commerce. In 2000 he launched IsRoil®, an Israeli olive oil brand. Through a chain of introductions; a Jdate in Holon, a referral to Carmel Mizrahi, and finally Royal Kedem Wines where he secured his first shipment to Bayonne, NJ. He marketed it as gourmet, sent samples to influencers, and caught the attention of Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman and inventor Ron Popeil. Orders followed. What started as olive oil became the seed of an empire. 

2003 – Florida 

Jay moved to South Florida, near his great uncle Deli, a Korean War pilot handpicked by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale as “most likely to succeed.” Deli taught him cigars, Cadillacs, and hustle. Deli built golf courses, polo clubs, and sod farms that became the largest sports turf company on the East Coast. His legacy continues through his son’s merger with LandTek Group, now a $200 million powerhouse.

 2005 – Publishing and Events

 By 2005 Jay was importing olive oil with the zeal of a crusader. That venture birthed something larger. He founded the Israeli Chamber of Commerce, then JACOB, and finally the Luxury Chamber of Commerce. The name stuck, not from a business plan but from a joke at a networking event that turned prophetic.

 Social media was exploding. Jay seized it, building platforms that became publications: South Florida Magazine, Southwest Florida Magazine, Good Jewish News, and a reborn Mondo Italiano. In 2008, a chance cigar encounter with the daughter of Robb Report’s founder led to the International Olive Oil Festival in Fort Lauderdale. Two city blocks closed for a weekend of oil, imports, and networking. Luxury Chamber’s first official event followed in 2009, ribbon cut with a strand of hundred-dollar bills. 

2010 – Public Relations

 Barry Epstein, public relations legend, joined the chamber. He brought billionaires and political icons. Jay dined with Domino’s founder Tom Monaghan, who still did 150 pushups daily and spoke like a Vatican envoy.

 2013 – Ross Mandell

 Wall Street maverick Ross Mandell entered Jay’s orbit. Before his prison term, Jay hosted a farewell networking gala in Manalapan. Years later, he welcomed him back with another chamber event. Loyalty mattered.

 2014 – Dr. Khalilah Ali

 Jay befriended Dr. Khalilah Camacho-Ali, ex-wife of Muhammad Ali, who later arranged to bring the boxing legend as a guest speaker.

 2017 – Little Italy

 With Franco Fiore, Jay co-founded the Little Italy Association of Fort Lauderdale. That year Mondo Italiano relaunched as a magazine with covers featuring Messi, Bocelli, Riboli, and Giada De Laurentiis.

 2018 – South Florida Magazine

 The magazine expanded in 2018, aligning with the chamber. Jay launched the Naples chapter that November.

 2021 – Southwest Florida Magazine

 The Gulf Coast got its own edition. Another gear in the growing media machine.

 2023 – Writing

 Jay began How to Perform Like a Billionaire, blending lessons from billionaires, Navy SEALs, Cosa Nostra, and Yakuza. A bible for hacking life and business.

 2025 – BillionaireBestseller.com

 The book is published. Alongside it, Think and Grow Rich: Kabbalah Edition and Luxury is a Mitzvah. At the same time, he is producing a mafia film, "My Buddy from Brooklyn" - Buddy Jacobson 2028, with a $200 million budget.

 

Legacy and Roots 

Half Maccabee / Half Viking he views his roots as a perpetual force.  His father was a Viking in every sense of the word; born in Minnesota and raised in a small town with a population of 500. Jay's dad Jim served as a helicoptor crew chief in Europe during the Vietnam war era.  When he came back from serving in the Army he went UMD majoring in Anthropology, then spent some time doing real estate development in Sarasota, Fl with his best friend "Dick Paul" He made great money in Florida during the cocaine cowboys era.  He left Florida and went back home to MN and teamed up with Terry Boquist and the "Wood Butchers" doing chansaw carvings and log work.  A year later he started building log homes on his own and did so successfully as one of the finest hand scribed home builders around.  He passed away in 2022.  Jay became the man he is today primarily from his father who taught him honesty on a brutal level!  Jay always believed in his Jewish identity and lived in his Viking identity. Olive oil brands, Israeli chambers, Good Jewish News. A DNA test revealed his matrilineal line was Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and Mizrahi. It all aligned. His family tree reached into Jewish resilience and global achievement.

 

He discovered cousins like Jeffrey Gural, New York real estate titan and casino owner, connected back to Buddy Jacobson the very man who once shaped his mother’s world and hence his! Mr.Gural was also the man behind the character "MUSH" on the notorious mob movie "The Bronx Tale"

 Today

 Jay Shapiro runs his world under the banner of Luxury Chamber Media Group. Magazines, chambers, networking events, cigars, legacy.

 

And the story has just begun. 

Chapter 1 – Luxury as an Engine of Good

• Job Creation & Livelihoods: From artisans to service workers

• Economic Growth: How luxury drives tourism, retail, and real estate

• Preservation of Craft: Luxury as the guardian of heritage

• Innovation Catalyst: Luxury markets pioneering sustainability, tech, and design

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Chapter 2 – The Beauty of Luxury

• Hiddur Mitzvah: The Jewish mandate to beautify commandments

• The Pleasure Principle: Joy and beauty as pathways to serve God

• Kabbalistic Rewards: Physical beauty as a reflection of spiritual merit

• The Transformative Power of Aesthetics: How luxury uplifts the spirit

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Chapter 3 – Luxury in the Torah and Tradition

• The Tabernacle (Mishkan): Gold, gems, and fine fabrics commanded by God

• The Temple in Jerusalem: Sacred opulence as divine service

• Shabbat & Holidays: Wine, food, and garments as holy luxuries

• Jewish Kingship: Royal splendor as an expression of divine honor

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Chapter 4 – Kabbalah and the Sparks of Luxury

• Birur Nitzotzot: Elevating divine sparks through enjoyment

• Tiferet (Beauty): Luxury as a mirror of cosmic harmony

• Ein Sof’s Abundance: Reflecting infinite divine generosity

• The Sacredness of the Physical: Transforming consumption into devotion

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Chapter 5 – Luxury as a Path to Giving

• Charity Through Wealth: How luxury enables philanthropy

• Dignity of Others: Offering luxury experiences as hachnasat orchim (hospitality)

• Community Support: Luxury markets funding schools, hospitals, and cultural institutions

• Luxury Events & Mitzvahs: Weddings, bar mitzvahs, and communal feasts

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Chapter 6 – The Psychology of Luxury

• Self-Worth and Dignity: Honoring the divine image within

• Motivation & Drive: Luxury as a catalyst for ambition and achievement

• Mindful Consumption: Appreciation, not gluttony

• Emotional Healing: How beauty and refinement soothe the soul

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Chapter 7 – Luxury as Legacy

• Heritage and Continuity: Passing treasures across generations

• Immortality of Beauty: Creating timeless works of art

• The Story Behind the Object: Each luxury piece as a vessel of meaning

• Luxury as Memory: Anchoring family and communal history

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Chapter 8 – The Ethical Dimension

• Luxury and Responsibility: Wealth as stewardship, not ownership

• Sustainable Luxury: Eco-friendly materials, fair labor, and ethical sourcing

• Avoiding Vanity: The fine line between mitzvah and ego

• Aligning Luxury with Values: Choosing beauty that uplifts others

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Chapter 9 – Luxury and the Future

• Technology and Luxury: AI, digital art, and next-gen experiences

• Global Luxury Trends: Shifts in culture, wealth, and spirituality

• Luxury as Tikun Olam: Repairing the world with abundance and generosity

• The Coming Age of Beauty: A messianic vision where beauty fills the earth

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Epilogue – The Mitzvah of Enjoyment

• Luxury as both a gift and responsibility

• Living in beauty as honoring God’s creation

• Final blessing: May we all live lives of abundance, refinement, and mitzvah