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

It would be a dramatic oversimplification to characterize the national disposition after the antisemitic terrorist attack on Jewish Australians during Bondi Hanukah celebrations as one of simple ennui.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of the nation's urban centers – a tone of initial shock, grief and terror is shifting to anger and deep division.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced fears of the Jewish community are now highly attuned. Just as, they are sensitive to reconciling 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 moment for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our faith in humanity is so sorely depleted. This is especially so for those of us fortunate enough never to have endured the animosity and fear of religious and ethnic persecution on this continent or elsewhere.

And yet the algorithms keep spewing at us the banal hot takes of those with blistering, divisive views but no sense at all of that profound vulnerability.

This is a time when I lament not having a greater faith. I mourn, because believing in people – in our potential for kindness – has failed us so painfully. A different source, a greater power, is needed.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have witnessed such profound examples of human goodness. The heroism of individuals. The bravery of those present. Emergency personnel – police officers and paramedics, those who ran towards the gunfire to aid fellow humans, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

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

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

Togetherness, hope and compassion was the essence of faith.

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

And yet elements of the Australian polity reacted so disgustingly quickly with division, finger-pointing and recrimination.

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

Observe the harmful message of disunity from longstanding agitators of societal discord, capitalizing on the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the statements of political figures while the investigation was still active.

Government has a formidable task to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is mourning and frightened and seeking the hope and, importantly, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the official terror alert was judged as probable, did such a significant public Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly inadequate security presence? Like how could the alleged killers have multiple firearms in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and consistently warned of the danger of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were subjected to that cliched argument (or iterations of it) that it’s people not weapons that cause death. Naturally, each point are true. It’s feasible to simultaneously pursue new ways to stop violent bigotry and keep firearms away from its possible actors.

In this metropolis of immense beauty, of pristine azure skies above ocean and sand, the ocean and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not look quite the same again to the many who’ve noted that iconic Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.

We yearn right now for understanding and meaning, for family, and perhaps for the consolation of aesthetics in art or the natural world.

This weekend many Australians are calling off holiday gathering plans. Reflective solitude will feel more in order.

But this is perhaps somewhat counterintuitive. For in these days of anxiety, outrage, sadness, bewilderment and loss we need each other now more than ever.

The reassurance of togetherness – the binding force of the unity in the very word – is what we likely need most.

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