Leviticus 1:4
He shall lay his hand on the head of the offering and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.
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One of the smallest yet most tightly packed books on my shelf is a classic by John Murray titled Redemption Accomplished and Applied.
Here is his summary of the offerings in Leviticus:
Sin involves a certain liability, a liability arising from the holiness of God. Sacrifice was the divinely instituted provision whereby the sin might be covered and the liability to the divine wrath and curse removed.
In laying his hands upon the head of the offering there was transferred symbolically to the offering the sin and liability of the offerer. This is the pivot on which the transaction turned.
The notion in essence was that the sin of the offerer was imputed to the offering and the offering bore in substitutive endurance, the death penalty of that sin.