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While the nation settles into for a customary Christmas holiday across slow-moving days of coast and scorching heat set to the soundtrack of Test cricket and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer mood feels, sadly, like none before.

It would be a dramatic understatement to describe the national temperament after the anti-Jewish terrorist attack on Jewish Australians during Bondi Hanukah festivities as one of mere ennui.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tone of immediate surprise, sorrow and terror is segueing to fury and bitter division.

Those who had not picked up on the frequently expressed concerns of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Just as, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, vigorous official fight against antisemitism with the right to demonstrate against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a moment for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our faith in humanity is so sorely diminished. This is especially so for those of us fortunate enough never to have experienced the hatred and dread of faith-based persecution on this land or anywhere else.

And yet the social media feeds keep spewing at us the trite hot takes of those with blistering, polarizing views but little understanding at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

This is a time when I lament not having a greater faith. I lament, because having faith in humanity – in mankind’s capacity for kindness – has failed us so acutely. A different source, something higher, is needed.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have witnessed such profound instances of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The selflessness of bystanders. First responders – police officers and paramedics, those who ran towards the danger to help fellow humans, some publicly hailed but for the most part unnamed and unheralded.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered in the wind all about Bondi, the necessity of community, faith-based and cultural unity was admirably promoted by faith leaders. It was a call of love and acceptance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a moment of targeted violence.

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

Unity, hope and love was the essence of belief.

‘Our public places may not appear exactly as they did again.’

And yet elements of the political landscape reacted so nauseatingly quickly with division, finger-pointing and accusation.

Some elected officials moved straight for the pessimism, using the atrocity as a calculating opportunity to challenge Australia’s migration rules.

Observe the harmful rhetoric of disunity from veteran fomenters of Australian racial division, capitalizing on the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the words of political figures while the probe was still active.

Politics has a formidable task to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is mourning and scared and looking for the light and, not least, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the official terror alert was assessed as probable, did such a large open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly inadequate protection? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so openly and consistently alerted of the threat of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were subjected to that tired argument (or iterations of it) that it’s people not guns that kill. Of course, each point are valid. It’s feasible to simultaneously pursue new ways to stop violent bigotry and keep guns away from its potential perpetrators.

In this metropolis of profound splendor, of clear blue heavens above ocean and sand, the ocean and the beaches – our communal areas – may not seem quite the same again to the multitude who’ve observed that famous Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene violence.

We yearn right now for comprehension and significance, for loved ones, and perhaps for the solace of beauty in culture or nature.

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

But this is perhaps somewhat counterintuitive. For in these days of anxiety, outrage, melancholy, bewilderment and grief we require each other more than ever.

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

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