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While the nation winds down for a customary Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of beach and blistering heat set to the soundtrack of Test cricket and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer atmosphere seems, sadly, like none before.

It would be a dramatic understatement to characterize the national disposition after the antisemitic terrorist attack on Australian Jews during Bondi Hanukah festivities as one of simple ennui.

Throughout the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tone of initial surprise, sorrow and horror is segueing to fury and deep polarization.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced fears of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, vigorous official fight against antisemitism with the freedom to peacefully protest against genocide.

If ever there was a time for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our belief in mankind is so sorely diminished. This is especially so for those of us fortunate enough never to have endured the hatred and dread of faith-based targeting on this land or elsewhere.

And yet the social media feeds keep spewing at us the banal hot takes of those with blistering, polarizing stances but no sense at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

This is a period when I lament not having a greater spiritual belief. I lament, because believing in people – in our capacity for kindness – has let us down so painfully. Something else, something higher, is required.

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

When the police tape still waved in the wind all about Bondi, the imperative of community, religious and ethnic solidarity was admirably championed by religious figures. It was a message of compassion and acceptance – of bringing together rather than dividing in a time of targeted violence.

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

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 disgustingly quickly with division, finger-pointing and recrimination.

Some elected officials moved straight for the darkness, using the atrocity as a calculating chance to challenge Australia’s migration rules.

Witness the dangerous rhetoric of division from veteran agitators of Australian racial division, capitalizing on the massacre 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 grieving and frightened and looking for the light and, not least, answers to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was assessed as probable, did such a significant public Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a woefully insufficient protection? Like how could the alleged killers have multiple firearms in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so openly and repeatedly alerted of the threat of targeted attacks?

How quickly we were subjected to that cliched argument (or iterations of it) that it’s individuals not guns that kill. Of course, both things are true. It’s possible to at the same time pursue new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and keep guns away from its potential actors.

In this city of immense beauty, of pristine 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 observed that famous Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s horrific violence.

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

This weekend many Australians are cancelling holiday gathering plans. Quiet contemplation will seem more appropriate.

But this is perhaps counterintuitively counterintuitive. For in these days of anxiety, anger, melancholy, bewilderment and loss we require each other now 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 long, enervating summer.