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While the nation settles into for a traditional Christmas holiday across slow-moving days of beach and scorching heat accompanied by the soundtrack of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the nation's summer atmosphere seems, unfortunately, like none before.

It would be a significant oversimplification to characterize the national temperament after the anti-Jewish terrorist attack on Australian Jews during the beachside Hanukah festivities as one of simple discontent.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tenor of immediate surprise, grief and terror is shifting to fury and deep division.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed fears of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Similarly, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, vigorous government and institutional crackdown against antisemitism with the right to demonstrate against genocide.

If ever there was a time for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our faith in humanity is so deeply depleted. This is particularly so for those of us lucky never to have endured the animosity and fear of religious and ethnic persecution on this land or elsewhere.

And yet the algorithms keep churning out at us the trite instant opinions of those with inflammatory, polarizing stances but no sense at all of that profound vulnerability.

This is a period when I lament not having a greater faith. I lament, because believing in humanity – in mankind’s capacity for kindness – has failed us so painfully. Something else, something higher, is needed.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have seen such profound instances of human decency. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. First responders – police officers and paramedics, those who ran towards the danger to help others, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unheralded.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of community, faith-based and cultural solidarity was laudably championed by faith leaders. It was a message of love and tolerance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a moment of targeted violence.

Consistent with the meaning of Hanukah (light amid darkness), there was so much appropriate evocation of the need for hope.

Unity, hope and love was the message of faith.

‘Our shared community spaces may not look exactly as they did again.’

And yet segments of the political landscape responded so nauseatingly quickly with division, blame and recrimination.

Some politicians gravitated straight for the pessimism, using the atrocity as a cynical chance to question Australia’s immigration policies.

Witness the harmful message of disunity from longstanding fomenters of Australian racial division, capitalizing on the attack before the site was even cold. Then read the words of political figures while the investigation was still active.

Politics has a daunting task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is mourning and scared and looking for the hope and, not least, explanations to so many questions.

Like why, when the official terror alert was assessed as likely, did such a significant public Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly insufficient protection? Like how could the alleged killers have multiple firearms in the residence when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and repeatedly warned of the threat of targeted attacks?

How quickly we were treated to that tired line (or iterations of it) that it’s people not guns that cause death. Naturally, each point are true. It’s possible to at the same time pursue new ways to prevent violent bigotry and keep firearms away from its possible actors.

In this city of immense beauty, of clear blue heavens above ocean and sand, the ocean and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not look entirely familiar again to the many who’ve noted that famous Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene violence.

We long right now for understanding and meaning, for family, and perhaps for the solace of aesthetics in culture or the natural world.

This weekend many Australians are calling off holiday gathering plans. Quiet contemplation will feel more in order.

But this is perhaps somewhat counterintuitive. For in these times of anxiety, anger, melancholy, confusion and loss we need each other now more than ever.

The reassurance of togetherness – the human glue of the unity in the very word – is what we probably need most.

But sadly, all of the indicators are that unity in public life and society will be hard to find this long, enervating summer.