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As the nation winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of coast and scorching heat accompanied by the soundtrack of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the country’s summer atmosphere 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 Bondi Hanukah festivities as one of simple ennui.

Throughout the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tenor of immediate surprise, grief and terror is shifting to anger and deep polarization.

Those who had not picked up on the frequently expressed concerns of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Just as, they are attuned to balancing the need for a far more urgent, vigorous government and institutional crackdown against antisemitism with the right to peacefully protest against genocide.

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

And yet the algorithms keep churning out at us the trite instant opinions of those with blistering, divisive stances but little understanding at all of that terrifying fragility.

This is a time when I regret not having a stronger faith. I mourn, because having faith in people – in mankind’s potential for kindness – has failed us so painfully. Something else, something higher, is needed.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have witnessed such profound examples of human decency. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. First responders – law enforcement and medical staff, those who ran towards the danger to help others, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

When the police tape still fluttered in the wind all about Bondi, the necessity of social, faith-based and cultural unity was laudably championed by faith leaders. It was a call of love and acceptance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a moment of targeted violence.

In keeping with the symbolism of Hanukah (illumination amid gloom), there was so much fitting evocation of the need for hope.

Togetherness, light and love was the message of faith.

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

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

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

Observe the harmful message of division from longstanding fomenters of Australian racial division, capitalizing on the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the statements of leadership aspirants while the probe was ongoing.

Politics has a formidable task to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is mourning and frightened and seeking the light and, not least, explanations to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the official terror alert was judged as probable, did such a significant open-air Hanukah event go ahead with such a woefully insufficient security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the family home when the security agency has so openly and repeatedly alerted of the threat of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were subjected to that cliched line (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not guns that kill. Of course, both things are valid. It’s possible to at the same time seek new ways to prevent violent bigotry and keep firearms away from its possible actors.

In this city of immense splendor, of pristine azure skies above ocean and sand, the ocean and the beaches – our communal areas – may not look quite the same again to the multitude who’ve observed that iconic Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.

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

This weekend many Australians are cancelling holiday gathering plans. Reflective solitude will seem more appropriate.

But this is perhaps counterintuitively counterintuitive. For in these times of anxiety, outrage, sadness, bewilderment and loss we require each other 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 elusive this extended, draining summer.