As quivering hands and mysterious ideas mark the new dry era at Harvard, the official alcohol policy remains as ambiguous as the Reagan Administration's arms control policy. The law is the law, administrators are heard to chant, scaring even yellow robed men in the Square. But what is Harvard policy? This week Daniel Steiner, Derek Bok's answer to Larry Speakes, turns to his mail...

Dear Dan:

I'm an Orthodox rabbi staying at one of the residential houses and need your advice. Last night, over mineral water and toast, the house master announced G-d had just blessed him with a son. Before I could say Mazel Tov, he asked if I could perform the circumcision next week. "Yes," I said, "Who could deny a baby his place?"

My problem is this: By tradition, the rabbi provides a little wine to the baby to dull the pain. (Steiner, eh? Perhaps you remember that a briss is not always a Jew's earliest happy memory.) The kid will not be 21 for many years, so can we have a small exception? --A Loving Rabbi

Dear Rabbi:

No pain, no gain.

Dear Dan:

I'm a 21-year-old Biology concentrator at Harvard, and I always study and never drink anything stronger than Classic Coke. I've looked everywhere in Gray's Anatomy, but I can't find a straight answer.

Where do babies come from?   --Confused in Four Colors

Dear Four Colors:

People who put rum in their Classic Coke and drive Chevys with large back seats.

Dear Dan:

I'm a field hockey player at North House, and I'm worried. Our bathrooms are coed (my parents don't know), and yesterday I saw one of the new sophomore football players go into the shower with an industrial-sized bottle of shampoo. While I was blow drying my hair, I saw him stumble out of the shower stall, smiling and singing "10,000 Men of Harvard." I went into the shower next, and--my parents warned me about this--the shampoo bottle was empty.

Then I looked at the contents label for this "baby shampoo:" water, amphoteric-19, polysorbate 20, PEG-150 distearate, sorbatan laurate, boric acid, fragrance and... benzyl alcohol.

What should I do?   --Suspicious Up North