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While Australia winds down for a customary Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of coast and scorching heat accompanied by the soundtrack of sporting matches and insect sounds, this year the country’s summer mood feels, unfortunately, like none before.

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

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tone of initial shock, sorrow and horror is shifting to anger and deep division.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced fears of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are attuned to balancing the need for a much more immediate, energetic official crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to demonstrate against genocide.

If ever there was a time for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our belief in mankind is so deeply diminished. This is especially so for those of us lucky never to have endured the animosity and fear of faith-based persecution on this land or anywhere else.

And yet the social media feeds keep churning out at us the trite instant opinions of those with inflammatory, polarizing stances but little understanding at all of that profound vulnerability.

This is a time when I lament not having a greater faith. I mourn, because having faith in people – in mankind’s capacity for kindness – has let us down so acutely. A different source, something higher, is required.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such profound instances of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and medical staff, those who ran towards the gunfire to help others, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still waved wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of social, religious and cultural solidarity was admirably promoted by faith leaders. It was a message of compassion and tolerance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a moment of targeted violence.

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

Unity, hope and compassion was the message of faith.

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

And yet segments of the Australian polity reacted so nauseatingly swiftly with division, finger-pointing and accusation.

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

Observe the dangerous message of division from veteran agitators of societal discord, exploiting the massacre before the site was even cold. Then read the statements of political figures while the probe was still active.

Government has a daunting task to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is grieving and scared and seeking the hope and, not least, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as probable, did such a large open-air Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly insufficient protection? Like how could the alleged killers have multiple firearms in the family home when the security agency has so publicly and consistently warned of the danger of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were treated to that tired line (or iterations of it) that it’s individuals not weapons that kill. Of course, each point are true. It’s feasible to at the same time seek new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and keep firearms away from its possible perpetrators.

In this city of immense splendor, of clear azure skies above ocean and sand, the water and the coastline – our shared community spaces – may not look quite the same again to the many who’ve noted that iconic Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.

We long right now for comprehension and significance, for family, and perhaps for the solace of beauty in culture or nature.

This weekend many Australians are calling off Christmas party plans. Quiet contemplation will feel more in order.

But this is perhaps counterintuitively counterintuitive. For in these days of fear, outrage, sadness, bewilderment and grief 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 politics and the community will be elusive this extended, draining summer.