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While the nation settles into for a customary Christmas holiday across languorous days of coast and scorching heat accompanied by the soundtrack of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the nation's summer atmosphere seems, unfortunately, like no other.

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

Throughout the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tone of initial shock, sorrow and horror is shifting to fury and deep polarization.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed concerns of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Just as, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, vigorous official fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to demonstrate against mass atrocities.

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 lucky never to have endured the hatred and dread of religious and ethnic targeting on this continent or anywhere else.

And yet the algorithms keep spewing at us the banal instant opinions of those with blistering, polarizing views but little understanding at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

This is a period when I regret not having a stronger faith. I mourn, because believing in humanity – in mankind’s potential for kindness – has failed us so painfully. Something else, a greater power, is required.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme instances of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and paramedics, those who ran towards the gunfire to help others, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the police tape still waved in the wind all about Bondi, the necessity of social, faith-based and ethnic solidarity was admirably promoted by faith leaders. It was a call of love and tolerance – of unifying rather than dividing in a time of targeted violence.

Consistent with the meaning of Hanukah (light amid darkness), there was so much appropriate reference of the need for hope.

Togetherness, hope and compassion was the message of faith.

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

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

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

Witness the dangerous rhetoric of disunity from veteran agitators of societal discord, exploiting the massacre before the site was even cold. Then consider the statements of leadership aspirants while the investigation was ongoing.

Government has a daunting job to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is grieving and frightened and seeking the hope and, not least, explanations to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as likely, did such a significant public Hanukah event go ahead with such a woefully inadequate protection? Like how could the accused attackers have multiple firearms in the family home when the security agency has so publicly and consistently warned of the threat of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were subjected to that cliched line (or versions of it) that it’s people not weapons that kill. Of course, both things are true. It’s possible to simultaneously seek new ways to prevent violent bigotry and keep guns away from its possible actors.

In this metropolis of profound beauty, of clear blue heavens above sea and sand, the ocean and the beaches – our communal areas – may not look entirely familiar again to the many who’ve observed that iconic Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.

We long right now for comprehension and meaning, for family, and perhaps for the consolation of aesthetics in art or nature.

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

But this is perhaps somewhat against instinct. For in these days of anxiety, anger, sadness, confusion and grief we require each other now more than ever.

The reassurance of community – the human glue of the unity in the very word – is what we probably need most.

But tragically, all of the indicators are that unity in politics and society will be hard to find this long, enervating summer.