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While the nation winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday across slow-moving days of beach and blistering heat set to the soundtrack of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the country’s summer mood feels, sadly, like none before.

It would be a dramatic understatement to describe the national disposition after the antisemitic terrorist attack on Jewish Australians during the beachside Hanukah festivities as one of mere discontent.

Across the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tone of immediate surprise, grief and terror is segueing to fury and bitter polarization.

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced concerns of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Just as, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, vigorous official fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to peacefully protest against genocide.

If ever there was a moment for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our faith in mankind is so sorely depleted. This is particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have endured the animosity and dread of religious and ethnic targeting on this land or anywhere else.

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

This is a period when I regret not having a greater faith. I mourn, because having faith in humanity – in mankind’s capacity for kindness – has let us down so painfully. Something else, something higher, is needed.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme examples of human decency. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. First responders – police officers and paramedics, those who charged into the danger to aid fellow humans, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

When the barrier cordon still waved in the wind all about Bondi, the necessity of community, faith-based and cultural unity was admirably promoted by religious figures. It was a call of compassion and tolerance – of bringing together rather than dividing in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

In keeping with the meaning of Hanukah (illumination amid darkness), there was so much appropriate evocation of the need for lightness.

Togetherness, hope and love was the essence of faith.

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

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

Some politicians gravitated straight for the darkness, using the atrocity as a cynical chance to challenge Australia’s migration rules.

Witness the dangerous message of disunity from longstanding agitators of Australian racial division, exploiting the attack before the crime scene 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 scared and seeking the hope and, importantly, answers to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as probable, did such a significant open-air Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly insufficient security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the residence when the domestic intelligence organisation has so openly and consistently alerted of the threat of antisemitic violence?

How quickly we were subjected to that cliched line (or versions of it) that it’s people not weapons that cause death. Naturally, each point are valid. It’s feasible to at the same time seek new ways to stop violent bigotry and keep guns away from its possible perpetrators.

In this city of immense splendor, of pristine blue heavens above sea and sand, the ocean and the beaches – our communal areas – 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 horrific violence.

We long right now for understanding and significance, for loved ones, and perhaps for the solace of beauty in culture or nature.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling Christmas party plans. Quiet contemplation will feel more appropriate.

But this is perhaps counterintuitively counterintuitive. For in these times of fear, outrage, sadness, bewilderment and grief we require each other now more than ever.

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

But sadly, all of the portents are that unity in public life and the community will be hard to find this extended, draining summer.