I know helium is a noble gas and it is generally known to be non-reactive. I also know the nature of ATOMS and the electron orbital patterns and valence of the shells. It seems to me that the further to the bottom and to the left of the table the more those ATOMs will be willing to give up electrons. I want to know if placing a molecule of He with that of any bottom left element would prompt an exchange of electrons.

• Why is filling the valence shell so important?
• Why is sodium stable?

Things DON'T happen for two reasons.

• The overall energy may be higher than before a reaction, or...
• The overall energy change may be favorable, but there may be a large energy barrier to overcome before the reaction can start (that's why you can operate a natural gas jet in the air without having it ignite spontaneously).

  See Frank Lambert's excellent website on Shakespeare and Thermodynamics. While this sounds a bit daunting, C.P. Snow claimed that a non-scientist not knowing the second law of thermodynamics was equivalent to a scientist having never read Shakespeare. Lambert's site is an attempt to unpack that statement and show--in lay terms--how the 2d Law literally makes life possible.

However, noble gases don't really fit into the periodic table from a chemical point of view.

The periodic table began as a list of elements by atomic weight; it was soon observed that elements fit into families, each family with a shared pattern of reactivity and other properties, where family membership varied in rotation by atomic weight. It was later discovered that atomic number (the number of protons in the nucleus) was the true organizing principle, eliminating ambiguities such as the fact that iodine has a lower atomic mass than tellurium, even though their chemical properties sort in the opposite direction.

But nobody knew about noble gases at the time. They weren't discovered until later.

By the time atomic numbers had been discovered, noble gases were known, but as strictly empirical objects. The problem was that they didn't form oxides at all--while the rest of the periodic table sorted well on the formula of the oxide. If one made a new family, noble gases fit into the mass-based periodic table, but not unambiguously: argon is heavier than potassium, but xenon is lighter than cesium. The discovery of atomic numbers allowed the noble gases to be fitted in properly: between the halogens (Group 17) and the alkali metals (Group 1).

But they still don't fit well, chemically. The problem is that all members of the noble gas family have an especially stable number of electrons, and so they don't react with much; in particular, they aren't willing to accept more electrons. When they do react, it is with elements that are especially good at stripping electrons from other atoms: typically oxygen and fluorine, and even then, noble gas compounds are pretty unstable. For example, XeF₄ is a powerful fluorinating agent.

So (to repeat myself), the upper right/lower left rule only works for elements OTHER than the noble gases, making cesium (francium actually, but nobody's ever made a visible amount of francium) and fluorine the most reactive chemical elements.