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As Australia winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of coast and scorching heat set to the background of sporting matches and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer atmosphere seems, sadly, like no other.

It would be a dramatic understatement to describe the collective temperament after the anti-Jewish terrorist attack on Jewish Australians during the beachside 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 tenor of immediate shock, grief and horror is segueing to anger and deep division.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced fears of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Just as, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, energetic government and institutional fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to demonstrate against genocide.

If ever there was a time for a national listening, it is now, when our belief in mankind is so deeply diminished. This is particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have endured the animosity and fear of faith-based targeting on this continent or elsewhere.

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

This is a period when I lament not having a greater spiritual belief. I mourn, because believing in humanity – in mankind’s capacity for kindness – has failed us so acutely. Something else, something higher, is required.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have witnessed such profound examples of human goodness. The heroism of individuals. The bravery of those present. First responders – law enforcement and paramedics, those who charged into the gunfire to help 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 social, faith-based and cultural solidarity was admirably promoted by religious figures. It was a message of compassion and acceptance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a time of targeted violence.

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

Unity, hope and love was the essence of faith.

‘Our shared community spaces may not look exactly as they did again.’

And yet elements of the Australian polity responded so disgustingly quickly with fragmentation, blame and recrimination.

Some elected officials moved straight for the darkness, using the atrocity as a calculating chance to question Australia’s immigration policies.

Witness the dangerous message of division from longstanding agitators of societal discord, exploiting the attack before the site was even cold. Then consider the statements of political figures while the probe was still active.

Politics has a formidable task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is grieving and scared and looking for the hope and, importantly, explanations to so many questions.

Like why, when the official terror alert was assessed as likely, did such a large open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a woefully insufficient security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the residence when the security agency has so openly and repeatedly warned of the danger of antisemitic violence?

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

In this city of immense beauty, of pristine blue heavens above sea and sand, the water and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not seem quite the same again to the many who’ve observed that famous Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s obscene violence.

We long right now for understanding and meaning, for family, and perhaps for the solace of beauty in art or the natural world.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling holiday gathering plans. Reflective solitude will seem more in order.

But this is perhaps somewhat counterintuitive. For in these times of fear, outrage, sadness, bewilderment 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 likely need most.

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