The Passover Seder in the Talmud 6

This is the last in a series of blogs look at the Pesach seder as presented in the Talmud Meseches Pesachim. The reader is urged to choose an appropriate Haggadah to use (and to study) before the first seder, so that he/she can delve deeper into the study of the texts and their meaning. Sefaria.org has a number of haggadot to select from. As the seder in the Talmud closes, we turn to the last mishnah in Meseches Pesachim 119 dealing with the seder (from Sefaria.org The William Davidson digital edition of the Koren Noe Talmud Bavli):

In today’s time, we do not have the Paschal sacrifice and the modern haggadah involves eating the “afikoman” after the meal is completed (before midnight), and the recitation of the grace after meals, the third cup, Hallel followed by the fourth cup, and then several songs and prayers (including  kol chai from the daily shacharit service). The seder concludes with the recitation of “Chasal Siddur Pesach“.

We should, before closing, discuss the counting of the omer starting at the second seder in the diaspora (Sefaria Haggadah with community translation from sefaria.org):

The counting of the omer (S’firot HaOmer; an omer is just a small measure of grain from Temple times) marks the seven weeks (forty-nine days between Pesach and Shavuot). The mitzvah of counting the omer (since we no longer bring the grain offering to Jerusalem) comes from Leviticus (Sefer Vayikra) 23:15-16 (from Sefaria.org The Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures by JPS):

We close this series of blogs with a reminder from Deuteronomy (Sefer Devarim) chapter 6:1-25 (from Sefaria.org The Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures by JPS):

Chag Sameach!