Why is Canuka different?

Rabbi Zevulun Shub shlit”a (Ramot, Jerusalem) spoke in shul and said quoted the Rambam who explains why we are to sin rather than die (if ti comes down to that!) for most sins, is because Torah is not a punishment that we need to suffer for, rather it is for our on benefit and good. Therefore wen our life is on the line our own benefit comes first.

Following this logic, therefore at those times when indeed we are to die rather than sin, it must only mean that dying is then preferable to such sinning.

One of those times is when the non-jews are out to prevent jews from being Jewish by making them irreligious. We are then obligated to give our lives rather than capitulate. The import of this is that it is worse to live without G-d than to die.

Chanuka commemorates that period when the Greeks had tried to make us into Greeks. That, as we understand it, is a fate far worse than death. So our being saved from this is a great joy, even bigger than the physical salvation we enjoyed Purim and Pessach. Truly, as the Rambam writes, Chanuka is a very great and precious mitzvah!