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As the nation winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday across slow-moving days of coast and blistering heat set to the soundtrack of Test cricket and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer mood seems, sadly, like none before.

It would be a dramatic understatement to describe the collective temperament after the antisemitic terrorist attack on Australian Jews during Bondi Hanukah celebrations as one of mere discontent.

Across the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tenor of immediate surprise, sorrow and horror is shifting to fury and bitter polarization.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced fears of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a far more urgent, energetic official crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to demonstrate against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a time for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our faith in humanity is so sorely diminished. This is particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have endured the animosity and dread of faith-based persecution on this land or anywhere else.

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

This is a time when I regret not having a greater spiritual belief. I lament, because having faith in people – in our capacity for compassion – has failed us so acutely. A different source, something higher, is needed.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such profound instances of human decency. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. First responders – law enforcement and paramedics, those who ran towards the gunfire to aid others, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

When the police tape still waved in the wind all about Bondi, the imperative of community, religious and ethnic solidarity was admirably promoted by faith leaders. It was a call of compassion and acceptance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a time of antisemitic slaughter.

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

Togetherness, hope and compassion was the essence of belief.

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

And yet segments of the political landscape reacted so nauseatingly swiftly with division, finger-pointing and recrimination.

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

Observe the harmful rhetoric of division from veteran fomenters of societal discord, capitalizing on the massacre before the site was even cold. Then read the statements of leadership aspirants while the investigation was ongoing.

Politics has a formidable job to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is grieving and scared and looking for the light and, importantly, explanations to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the official terror alert was judged as likely, did such a large public Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a woefully inadequate protection? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the family home when the security agency has so openly and repeatedly warned 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, both things are valid. It’s possible to simultaneously seek new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and prevent guns away from its potential actors.

In this city of profound splendor, of clear blue heavens above sea and sand, the water and the beaches – our communal areas – may not seem entirely familiar again to the many who’ve observed that iconic Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.

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 calling off Christmas party plans. Quiet contemplation will feel more in order.

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

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

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