On Christmas Day across America, millions of families will gather together to celebrate one of the seminal holy days of the Christian calendar. An important element of that celebration is the exchange of gifts and other expressions of generosity toward our family, friends, neighbors and many beyond our immediate circle who are less fortunate. Giving thanks through the act of giving lies at the heart of our understanding of Christmas.
But far beyond this specific occasional expression of giving, it turns out that human brains are hard-wired to be generous, and that doing so is actually good for us. Giving feels good because we are literally created to do it.
For Christians on this day, gifting recalls the ancient story of the three Magi bringing gifts to the newborn Jesus in an expression of thankfulness that reinforces our calling to live generously all year. But the instinctual need for us to give is as old as mankind itself and nearly universal across faiths. In Jewish tradition, charity or “tzedakah” is considered a mitzvah or commandment, one of the central obligations of the faith. Interestingly, the word translated “charity” in English literally means “justice” or “righteousness” in Hebrew.
For Muslims, almsgiving or “zakat” is one of the five pillars of Islam and requires that followers dedicate a fixed portion of their income to support others in need. The Quran instructs the faithful to “be steadfast in prayer and regular in charity”. Similar injunctions to giving occur in most other religions.
Yet while our various faiths instruct us to practice generosity, it may be that these religious precepts merely codify a genetically prescribed impulse that we as human beings are inherently programmed to practice. Science is discovering evidence that we are born to be givers.