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While Australia settles into for a traditional Christmas holiday during languorous days of beach and blistering heat set to the soundtrack of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the country’s summer mood feels, unfortunately, like none before.

It would be a dramatic oversimplification to describe the collective temperament after the anti-Jewish terrorist attack on Australian Jews during the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of simple discontent.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tone of immediate surprise, sorrow and terror is shifting to fury and deep polarization.

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced fears of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Just as, they are attuned to balancing the need for a much more immediate, energetic official fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to demonstrate against genocide.

If ever there was a moment for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our faith in humanity is so deeply depleted. This is especially so for those of us fortunate enough never to have endured the animosity and fear of faith-based persecution on this land or elsewhere.

And yet the social media feeds keep spewing at us the banal instant opinions of those with blistering, polarizing views but no sense at all of that profound vulnerability.

This is a period when I regret not having a greater spiritual belief. I lament, because believing in humanity – in our potential for compassion – has let us down so acutely. A different source, something higher, is required.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have seen such extreme examples of human goodness. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. First responders – law enforcement and medical staff, those who ran towards the danger to aid others, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

When the police tape still fluttered in the wind all about Bondi, the imperative of community, religious and ethnic solidarity was admirably championed by faith leaders. It was a message of love and acceptance – of unifying rather than dividing in a time of targeted violence.

In keeping with the symbolism of the Festival of Lights (illumination amid gloom), there was so much appropriate reference of the need for lightness.

Unity, hope and love was the essence of faith.

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

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

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

Observe the harmful message of division from veteran fomenters of Australian racial division, capitalizing on the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then read the words of leadership aspirants while the investigation was ongoing.

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

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was assessed as probable, did such a large public Hanukah event go ahead with such a woefully insufficient protection? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the residence when the security agency has so publicly and repeatedly alerted of the threat of antisemitic violence?

How quickly we were subjected to that tired line (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 stop hate-fuelled violence and keep firearms away from its possible actors.

In this city of immense beauty, of clear blue heavens above sea and shore, the ocean and the coastline – our shared community spaces – may not seem quite the same again to the many who’ve observed that iconic Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.

We long right now for comprehension and significance, for family, and perhaps for the consolation of aesthetics in art or nature.

This weekend many Australians are calling off Christmas party plans. Reflective solitude will seem more in order.

But this is perhaps somewhat counterintuitive. For in these times of anxiety, outrage, sadness, bewilderment and loss we require each other more than ever.

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

But tragically, all of the portents are that cohesion in politics and the community will be hard to find this long, enervating summer.