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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 soundtrack of sporting matches and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer mood seems, sadly, like no other.

It would be a significant oversimplification to characterize the collective disposition after the antisemitic terrorist attack on Australian Jews during the beachside Hanukah festivities as one of mere ennui.

Throughout the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tone of initial surprise, sorrow and horror is shifting to fury and bitter division.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced concerns of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are attuned to balancing the need for a much more immediate, energetic official fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to peacefully protest against genocide.

If ever there was a moment for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our faith in humanity is so deeply depleted. This is especially so for those of us lucky never to have experienced the animosity and dread of faith-based targeting on this land or elsewhere.

And yet the algorithms keep churning out at us the trite instant opinions of those with inflammatory, divisive views but no sense at all of that profound vulnerability.

This is a period when I regret not having a greater faith. I lament, because having faith in humanity – in our capacity for compassion – has failed us so acutely. A different source, a greater power, is needed.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have witnessed such profound examples of human decency. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – police officers and medical staff, those who charged into the gunfire to aid others, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

When the police tape still waved wildly all about Bondi, the necessity of community, faith-based and ethnic unity was admirably promoted by religious figures. It was a message of love and tolerance – of bringing together rather than splitting apart in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

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

Togetherness, light and love was the message of faith.

‘Our shared community spaces may not look quite the same again.’

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

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

Observe the harmful rhetoric of disunity from veteran fomenters of societal discord, exploiting the massacre before the site was even cold. Then read the words of leadership aspirants while the probe was still active.

Government has a formidable job to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is grieving and frightened and looking for the light and, importantly, explanations to so many questions.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as probable, did such a large public Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly insufficient security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the residence when the security agency has so openly and consistently alerted of the threat of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were treated to that tired argument (or iterations of it) that it’s people not guns that kill. Of course, both things are valid. It’s feasible to at the same time seek new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and prevent guns away from its possible actors.

In this metropolis of profound splendor, of pristine blue heavens above sea and sand, the water and the coastline – 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 consolation of aesthetics in art or the natural world.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling holiday gathering plans. Quiet contemplation will feel more in order.

But this is perhaps counterintuitively counterintuitive. For in these times of anxiety, anger, sadness, bewilderment and loss we need 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 tragically, all of the indicators are that cohesion in public life and society will be hard to find this extended, enervating summer.