יהושע בן פרחיה

Rabbi Yehoshua ben Perachiah was a sage of the era of the Zugot (pairs), Anshe Knesset HaGedola. In Pirkei Avot he appears together with Nittai the Arbelite, the two having received the tradition from those before them, and he is remembered for his counsel: “Make for yourself a teacher, acquire for yourself a friend, and judge every person favorably.” He served as nasi of the sanhedrin along with Nittai HaArbeli, his pair.

He is named in the chain of the Zugot who disputed the question of semichah — whether one may lean upon a festival offering on Yom Tov — where he held that one should not lean. The Gemara in Sanhedrin and Sotah brings the account of his flight to Alexandria of Egypt during the time that King Yannai was killing the sages, after which Shimon ben Shetach sent word inviting him to return to Jerusalem; the same passages preserve the difficult episode of his harsh rejection of a student, cited as an example of pushing away with both hands rather than drawing near. He is also quoted in Menachot in a saying about the burdens of leadership.