Kiddush Hashem: The obligation to sanctify God’s Name

 https://outorah.org/p/6474/

The reasons those three mitzvos are the ones for which we must die are as follows: (1) Murder – logically, why is my life more important than another person’s? (That goes both ways. If lost in the desert with a canteen, I can’t sacrifice myself by giving it away to another person because who says his life is more important than mine?) (2) Adultery/incest – the Torah compares the rape of a betrothed maiden to murder (Deut. 22:26), from which we derive that illicit relations are equally prohibited, even under coercion. (3) Idolatry – if we’re talking about the choice of desecrating vs. sanctifying God’s Name, what could be more of an issue than whether or not to bow down to a hunk of stone?

The reason for this mitzvah is that we are only here because of God. He should be the end-all and be-all of our lives. We should work hard to reflect well upon him and be willing to turn in those lives when necessary, such as if under compulsion to violate one of the cardinal sins.