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As Australia winds down 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, unfortunately, like no other.

It would be a dramatic understatement to characterize the national temperament after the antisemitic terrorist attack on Jewish Australians during the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of simple discontent.

Across the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tenor of initial surprise, sorrow and horror is segueing to fury and bitter polarization.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed concerns of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, vigorous official crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to demonstrate against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a moment for a national listening, it is now, when our belief in mankind is so sorely diminished. This is particularly so for those of us lucky never to have experienced the animosity and dread of religious and ethnic targeting on this land or anywhere else.

And yet the social media feeds keep churning out at us the banal instant opinions of those with blistering, divisive views but no sense at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

This is a period when I lament not having a greater faith. I mourn, because having faith in humanity – in mankind’s potential for kindness – has let us down so painfully. A different source, a greater power, is required.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme examples of human decency. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. Emergency personnel – police officers and paramedics, those who charged into the gunfire to help fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

When the police tape still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the necessity of social, faith-based and cultural unity was laudably championed by religious figures. It was a message of love and acceptance – of bringing together rather than dividing in a time of antisemitic slaughter.

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

Togetherness, light and compassion was the essence of belief.

‘Our shared community spaces may not look exactly as they did again.’

And yet segments of the Australian polity responded so nauseatingly swiftly with fragmentation, blame and accusation.

Some politicians moved straight for the pessimism, using tragedy as a calculating chance to question Australia’s migration rules.

Witness the dangerous message of division from longstanding agitators of Australian racial division, capitalizing on the attack before the site was even cold. Then read the words of leadership aspirants while the investigation was ongoing.

Government has a daunting job to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is mourning and frightened and seeking the hope and, importantly, explanations to so many questions.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level 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 residence when the domestic intelligence organisation has so openly and repeatedly warned of the threat of antisemitic violence?

How quickly we were treated to that cliched line (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not weapons that cause death. Of course, both things are valid. It’s possible to simultaneously seek new ways to prevent violent bigotry and prevent guns away from its potential perpetrators.

In this metropolis of profound splendor, of clear blue heavens above ocean and sand, the ocean and the coastline – our communal areas – may not seem entirely familiar again to the many who’ve noted that iconic Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s horrific bloodshed.

We long right now for comprehension and meaning, for loved ones, and perhaps for the solace of aesthetics in art or the natural world.

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

But this is perhaps somewhat against instinct. For in these days of anxiety, anger, melancholy, bewilderment and loss we require each other more than ever.

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

But tragically, all of the indicators are that unity in public life and the community will be elusive this long, enervating summer.