Exodus 29

Exodus 29:10

"Then you shall bring the bull before the tent of meeting, and Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands on the head of the bull.

For a long time, the laying of hands was a confusing action to me.  Maybe that's because I grew up in a family and a church where that sort of thing didn't occur frequently.  When someone laid hands on me, it usually meant that either I'd just gotten in trouble, or that I was about to be told something extremely important.  It wasn't until the last few years that I finally understood that my perception wasn't the norm, and that the laying of hands is today used for solidarity and blessing.

In the case of animals being sacrificed, my original perception is closer to truth.  The animals were in trouble.  They were going to have to take the penalty for someone else, and that penalty was death.  At the same time something important was about to happen.  They were going to die, so that someone else didn't have to.  The fact that the priests were laying their hands on the bull signified that the priests were not acceptable to God, and the bull had to die for them to be forgiven.

Also, laying hands on the bull turned it into a personal act.  This isn't taking your bull down to the butcher, dropping it off, and going home again.  Anyone who's known a kid who did 4H animal work knows how that kind of contact can make a loss personal.  That, I think, was part of the point, to make the sacrifice personal.  The people had to learn to improve, or more would die on their account.  It's one of the details that I think we've lost today, since Christ has already made the sacrifice needed.