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As Australia settles into for a customary Christmas holiday during languorous days of beach and blistering heat set to the soundtrack of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the nation's summer mood feels, sadly, like no other.

It would be a dramatic oversimplification to describe the collective temperament after the anti-Jewish terrorist attack on Australian Jews during Bondi Hanukah celebrations as one of mere ennui.

Across the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of the nation's urban centers – a tenor of initial shock, grief and horror is segueing to fury and bitter polarization.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced fears of the Jewish community are now highly attuned. Just as, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a much more immediate, vigorous government and institutional fight against antisemitism with the freedom to demonstrate against genocide.

If ever there was a time for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our belief in mankind is so sorely depleted. This is particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have endured the animosity and fear of faith-based persecution on this land or anywhere else.

And yet the social media feeds keep churning out at us the trite instant opinions of those with blistering, polarizing views but no sense 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 our capacity for compassion – has failed us so painfully. Something else, a greater power, is required.

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 fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unheralded.

When the barrier cordon still waved wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of community, faith-based and cultural unity was admirably promoted by religious figures. It was a call of compassion and acceptance – of bringing together rather than splitting apart in a time of targeted violence.

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

Togetherness, light and love was the essence of faith.

‘Our public places may not appear quite the same again.’

And yet segments of the political landscape responded so disgustingly quickly with division, blame and recrimination.

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

Witness the harmful message of disunity from longstanding agitators of societal discord, exploiting the attack before the site was even cold. Then consider the words of leadership aspirants while the investigation was ongoing.

Politics has a daunting task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is mourning and frightened and seeking the light and, importantly, explanations to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the official terror alert was assessed as probable, did such a large public Hanukah event go ahead with such a woefully inadequate protection? Like how could the alleged killers have six guns in the family home when the security agency has so publicly and consistently alerted of the danger of targeted attacks?

How quickly we were subjected to that tired line (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not weapons that cause death. Naturally, each point are true. It’s feasible to simultaneously pursue new ways to stop violent bigotry and prevent guns away from its possible actors.

In this city of profound beauty, of pristine azure skies above sea and shore, the water 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 jarringly out of place with last weekend’s obscene violence.

We long right now for comprehension and significance, for loved ones, and perhaps for the consolation of aesthetics in culture or nature.

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

But this is perhaps counterintuitively counterintuitive. For in these times of fear, anger, sadness, bewilderment and loss we need 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 tragically, all of the portents are that unity in public life and the community will be hard to find this long, draining summer.