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As the nation winds down for a customary Christmas holiday during languorous days of beach and blistering heat accompanied by the soundtrack of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the nation's summer mood feels, sadly, like none before.

It would be a significant oversimplification to describe the national temperament after the antisemitic terrorist attack on Australian Jews during the beachside Hanukah festivities as one of simple ennui.

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

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed concerns of the Jewish community are now highly attuned. Just as, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, energetic government and institutional fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom 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 diminished. This is particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have experienced the animosity and dread of religious and ethnic targeting on this continent or anywhere else.

And yet the algorithms keep spewing at us the banal hot takes of those with blistering, polarizing views but little understanding at all of that profound fragility.

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

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have witnessed such profound instances of human goodness. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and medical staff, those who charged into the danger to help fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unheralded.

When the police tape still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the necessity of community, faith-based and cultural solidarity was admirably promoted by faith leaders. It was a message of compassion and acceptance – of unifying rather than dividing in a time of targeted violence.

Consistent with the symbolism of the Festival of Lights (light amid gloom), there was so much fitting 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 elements of the Australian polity responded so disgustingly swiftly with division, blame and recrimination.

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

Observe the harmful rhetoric of disunity from longstanding agitators of societal discord, exploiting the massacre before the site was even cold. Then consider the statements of political figures while the probe was still active.

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

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged 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 family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so openly and repeatedly warned of the threat of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were subjected to that tired argument (or iterations of it) that it’s individuals not guns that kill. Naturally, each point are true. It’s feasible to simultaneously seek new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and prevent firearms away from its potential actors.

In this metropolis of profound splendor, of pristine azure skies above ocean and shore, the water and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not seem entirely familiar again to the multitude who’ve observed that famous Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene violence.

We yearn right now for understanding and significance, for family, and perhaps for the consolation of beauty in art or nature.

This weekend many Australians are calling off Christmas party plans. Reflective solitude will seem more appropriate.

But this is perhaps somewhat against instinct. For in these days of anxiety, anger, sadness, confusion and grief 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 likely need most.

But sadly, all of the portents are that unity in politics and society will be hard to find this long, draining summer.