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While Australia settles into for a customary Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of coast and scorching heat accompanied by the soundtrack of Test cricket and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer mood feels, unfortunately, like no other.

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

Across the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of the nation's urban centers – a tone of initial surprise, sorrow and terror is shifting to fury and deep division.

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced fears of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Just as, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, energetic government and institutional fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a moment for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our belief in mankind is so deeply diminished. 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 spewing at us the banal instant opinions of those with inflammatory, divisive stances but no sense at all of that profound vulnerability.

This is a time when I regret not having a stronger faith. I mourn, because having faith in people – in our capacity for compassion – has let us down so acutely. Something else, a greater power, is needed.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have seen such profound examples of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. First responders – law enforcement and paramedics, those who ran towards the danger to help others, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered in the wind all about Bondi, the necessity of social, religious and cultural unity was admirably promoted by religious figures. It was a call of love and acceptance – of bringing together rather than dividing in a moment of targeted violence.

Consistent with the symbolism of the Festival of Lights (light amid gloom), there was so much fitting evocation of the need for hope.

Unity, light and love was the message of faith.

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

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

Some elected officials moved straight for the darkness, using the atrocity as a calculating chance to question Australia’s immigration policies.

Witness the harmful message of division from longstanding agitators of Australian racial division, exploiting the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the words of leadership aspirants while the investigation was still active.

Politics has a daunting job to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is mourning and scared and seeking the light and, not least, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was assessed as likely, did such a significant public Hanukah event go ahead with such a woefully inadequate security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have multiple firearms in the residence when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and consistently alerted of the danger of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were treated to that tired argument (or versions of it) that it’s people not weapons that cause death. Naturally, both things are true. It’s feasible to simultaneously seek new ways to stop violent bigotry and keep guns away from its potential actors.

In this metropolis of immense splendor, of clear blue heavens 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 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 art or the natural world.

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

But this is perhaps counterintuitively against instinct. For in these days of anxiety, outrage, melancholy, bewilderment and loss we need each other now more than ever.

The reassurance 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 public life and society will be elusive this extended, enervating summer.