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While the nation winds down for a customary Christmas holiday during languorous days of beach and blistering heat set to the soundtrack of Test cricket and insect sounds, this year the country’s summer mood feels, unfortunately, like no other.

It would be a dramatic oversimplification to describe the national disposition after the anti-Jewish terrorist attack on Jewish Australians 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 tenor of initial shock, grief and terror is shifting to anger and bitter polarization.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed fears of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, energetic government and institutional 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 deeply diminished. This is especially so for those of us lucky never to have endured the animosity and dread of faith-based persecution on this continent or anywhere else.

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

This is a time 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, a greater power, is needed.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme instances of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and medical staff, those who charged into the danger to aid others, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still waved wildly all about Bondi, the necessity of social, religious and ethnic unity was laudably promoted by religious figures. It was a message of love and acceptance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a moment of targeted violence.

Consistent with the meaning of the Festival of Lights (illumination amid darkness), there was so much fitting reference of the need for hope.

Togetherness, hope and compassion was the message of belief.

‘Our shared community spaces may not appear quite the same again.’

And yet elements of the political landscape responded so disgustingly quickly with division, blame and accusation.

Some elected officials moved straight for the darkness, using tragedy as a calculating opportunity to challenge Australia’s immigration policies.

Witness the harmful rhetoric of disunity from veteran fomenters of societal discord, capitalizing on the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the statements of leadership aspirants while the investigation was ongoing.

Government has a daunting task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is grieving and scared and seeking the hope and, not least, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the official terror alert was judged as probable, did such a large public Hanukah event go ahead with such a woefully inadequate protection? Like how could the alleged killers have six guns in the residence when the security agency has so publicly and repeatedly alerted of the danger of antisemitic violence?

How quickly we were subjected to that tired line (or iterations of it) that it’s individuals not weapons that kill. Of course, each point are true. It’s feasible to simultaneously pursue new ways to stop violent bigotry and prevent guns away from its potential perpetrators.

In this city of profound splendor, of clear azure skies above sea and sand, the ocean and the beaches – our communal areas – may not seem entirely familiar again to the multitude who’ve noted that famous Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.

We yearn right now for comprehension and significance, for family, and perhaps for the consolation of aesthetics in art or the natural world.

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

But this is perhaps counterintuitively counterintuitive. For in these days of anxiety, outrage, melancholy, bewilderment and grief we require each other more than ever.

The reassurance of community – 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.