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While the nation settles into for a traditional Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of beach and scorching heat set to the background of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the nation's summer mood seems, unfortunately, like no other.

It would be a significant oversimplification to characterize the national disposition after the anti-Jewish terrorist attack on Australian Jews during the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of mere ennui.

Throughout the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tone of initial shock, sorrow and horror is segueing to fury and bitter division.

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced fears of the Jewish community are now highly attuned. Similarly, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a far more urgent, vigorous government and institutional crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to peacefully protest against genocide.

If ever there was a time for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our faith in mankind is so deeply diminished. This is particularly so for those of us lucky never to have experienced the hatred and dread of faith-based targeting on this land or anywhere else.

And yet the algorithms keep churning out at us the trite instant opinions of those with inflammatory, divisive views but little understanding at all of that terrifying fragility.

This is a time when I regret not having a stronger spiritual belief. I mourn, because believing in people – in our potential for kindness – has failed us so acutely. Something else, something higher, is required.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such profound instances of human decency. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The selflessness of bystanders. First responders – police officers and medical staff, those who ran towards the gunfire to help others, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

When the police tape still waved wildly all about Bondi, the necessity of social, religious and ethnic solidarity was admirably championed by religious figures. It was a call of love and tolerance – of unifying rather than dividing in a time of antisemitic slaughter.

In keeping with the meaning of Hanukah (light amid darkness), there was so much appropriate reference of the need for lightness.

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 Australian polity responded so nauseatingly quickly with division, blame and recrimination.

Some politicians moved straight for the darkness, using tragedy as a cynical opportunity to challenge Australia’s immigration policies.

Witness the dangerous message of disunity from longstanding fomenters of societal discord, capitalizing on the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then read the statements of leadership aspirants while the investigation was ongoing.

Government 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, importantly, answers to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the official terror alert was judged as likely, did such a large open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a woefully insufficient protection? Like how could the alleged killers have six guns in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so openly and consistently warned of the threat of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were treated to that tired argument (or iterations of it) that it’s people not weapons that kill. Of course, both things are true. It’s possible to at the same time pursue new ways to prevent violent bigotry and prevent firearms away from its potential actors.

In this city of profound splendor, of clear azure skies above ocean and sand, the ocean and the coastline – our shared community spaces – may not seem quite the same again to the many who’ve observed that famous Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s horrific violence.

We long right now for comprehension and significance, for loved ones, and perhaps for the consolation of aesthetics in culture or nature.

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

But this is perhaps counterintuitively counterintuitive. For in these days of anxiety, anger, sadness, confusion and loss we require each other now more than ever.

The comfort of community – the binding force of the unity in the very word – is what we probably need most.

But sadly, all of the indicators are that unity in politics and the community will be elusive this extended, enervating summer.