6292. 'Place your right hand on his head' means that good should accordingly occupy the first place. This is clear from the meaning of 'placing the right hand on a head' as considering to occupy the first place, as above in 6269, 6287. The placing of his hand by one on the head of another when he was going to bless belonged to a custom received from the ancients. For the head is where a person's actual powers of understanding and will reside, whereas the body is where actions in response and in obedience to them are located. Thus 'placing a hand on the head' was a representative act, denoting that a blessing should be imparted to a person's understanding and will, thus to his real self. That same custom originating in those ancient times remains even to this day and is followed at ordinations as well as in blessings.

The meaning of “back” is more literal when it is connected to objects. When someone takes something back or gives something back, the spiritual meaning is mostly centered on the object in question and the people performing the action.There are many instances in the Bible which describe people turning back, looking back or going back. In most cases it is a negative, sometimes devastatingly so (as with Lot’s wife, turned to a pillar of salt when she looked back at the destructrion of Sodom). In general this represents our state when we are advancing to a new spiritual level and find ourselves wishing for the comfort and ease of the old one – going back represents a return to an earlier, inferior stage.