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As the nation winds down for a customary Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of coast and scorching heat set to the background of Test cricket and insect sounds, this year the country’s summer atmosphere feels, unfortunately, like no other.

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

Throughout the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of the nation's urban centers – a tone of initial surprise, grief and terror is segueing to fury and deep polarization.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced concerns of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are attuned to balancing the need for a much more immediate, vigorous government and institutional fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom 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 depleted. This is particularly so for those of us lucky never to have endured the animosity and dread of religious and ethnic targeting on this land or elsewhere.

And yet the social media feeds keep spewing at us the banal instant opinions of those with blistering, divisive stances but no sense at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

This is a period when I regret not having a stronger spiritual belief. I mourn, because having faith in humanity – in our potential for compassion – has failed us so painfully. A different source, something higher, is required.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have witnessed such profound instances of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. 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 barrier cordon still waved in the wind all about Bondi, the imperative of community, religious and cultural unity was laudably promoted by faith leaders. It was a call of compassion and tolerance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a time of antisemitic slaughter.

In keeping with the meaning of the Festival of Lights (illumination amid gloom), there was so much fitting evocation of the need for lightness.

Unity, hope and compassion was the essence of faith.

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

And yet elements of the Australian polity reacted so disgustingly swiftly with fragmentation, finger-pointing and recrimination.

Some elected officials gravitated straight for the pessimism, using tragedy as a calculating chance to question Australia’s migration rules.

Witness the dangerous message of division from longstanding fomenters of societal discord, exploiting the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the words of political figures while the investigation was still active.

Government has a formidable job to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is grieving and scared and looking for the hope and, not least, answers to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was assessed as probable, did such a large open-air Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly inadequate protection? Like how could the alleged killers have multiple firearms in the residence when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and consistently warned of the threat of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were subjected to that cliched argument (or versions of it) that it’s people not guns that cause death. Of course, each point are valid. It’s possible to at the same time seek new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and prevent guns away from its potential perpetrators.

In this city of immense splendor, of pristine azure skies above sea and sand, the water and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not look entirely familiar again to the many who’ve noted that iconic Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s obscene violence.

We yearn right now for comprehension and meaning, for family, and perhaps for the consolation of beauty in culture or nature.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling holiday gathering plans. Reflective solitude will seem more in order.

But this is perhaps somewhat against instinct. For in these times of anxiety, outrage, sadness, bewilderment and grief we require each other more than ever.

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

But sadly, all of the indicators are that cohesion in politics and society will be elusive this long, enervating summer.