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As the nation settles into for a traditional Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of coast and blistering heat accompanied by the background of sporting matches 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 Jewish Australians during Bondi Hanukah festivities as one of mere discontent.

Across the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tenor of immediate surprise, sorrow and terror 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 attuned to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, vigorous official crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to demonstrate against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a moment for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our belief in humanity is so deeply diminished. This is especially so for those of us fortunate enough never to have endured the hatred and fear of religious and ethnic persecution on this land or elsewhere.

And yet the algorithms keep churning out at us the banal hot takes of those with inflammatory, polarizing views but no sense at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

This is a period when I lament not having a stronger spiritual belief. I mourn, because having faith in humanity – in our potential for kindness – has failed us so acutely. A different source, a greater power, is required.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have witnessed such profound instances of human decency. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and paramedics, those who ran towards the gunfire to aid others, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

When the police tape still fluttered in the wind all about Bondi, the necessity of community, religious and ethnic solidarity was admirably championed by religious figures. It was a message of love and tolerance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

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

Togetherness, light and compassion was the message of belief.

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

And yet elements of the political landscape reacted so disgustingly quickly with fragmentation, finger-pointing and recrimination.

Some politicians gravitated straight for the pessimism, using tragedy as a calculating opportunity to question Australia’s immigration policies.

Witness the dangerous rhetoric of division from longstanding fomenters of societal discord, exploiting the massacre before the site was even cold. Then consider the statements of leadership aspirants while the probe was ongoing.

Government has a formidable job to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is grieving and scared and looking for the hope and, not least, answers to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as probable, did such a significant open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a woefully inadequate protection? Like how could the alleged killers have six guns in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and consistently alerted of the danger of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were treated to that cliched line (or iterations of it) that it’s people not guns that kill. Naturally, each point are valid. It’s feasible to simultaneously seek new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and keep guns away from its possible actors.

In this metropolis of profound splendor, of clear azure skies above ocean and shore, the water and the beaches – our communal areas – may not look entirely familiar again to the multitude who’ve noted that famous Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.

We yearn 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. Quiet contemplation will seem more appropriate.

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

The reassurance 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 unity in public life and society will be elusive this long, enervating summer.