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As Australia settles into for a traditional Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of coast and blistering heat set to the soundtrack of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the country’s summer mood seems, sadly, like no other.

It would be a significant oversimplification to characterize the collective temperament after the antisemitic terrorist attack on Australian Jews during the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of mere discontent.

Across the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tone of initial shock, sorrow and terror is shifting to fury and bitter division.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed fears of the Jewish community are now highly attuned. Just as, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a much more immediate, energetic government and institutional crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to demonstrate 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 hatred and dread of religious and ethnic targeting on this continent or elsewhere.

And yet the social media feeds keep spewing at us the trite hot takes of those with blistering, polarizing views but little understanding at all of that profound fragility.

This is a time when I regret not having a stronger spiritual belief. I lament, because having faith in humanity – in mankind’s potential for kindness – has failed us so acutely. Something else, a greater power, is required.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme instances of human decency. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The selflessness of bystanders. First responders – police officers and paramedics, those who charged into the danger to aid fellow humans, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still waved in the wind all about Bondi, the necessity of social, religious and cultural unity was laudably championed by faith leaders. It was a message of compassion and acceptance – of bringing together rather than dividing in a time of targeted violence.

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

Togetherness, hope and love was the essence of belief.

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

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

Some politicians moved straight for the pessimism, using the atrocity as a cynical opportunity to question Australia’s immigration policies.

Observe the harmful rhetoric of division from veteran agitators of societal discord, exploiting the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then read the statements 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, explanations to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the official terror alert was judged as probable, did such a significant open-air 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 publicly and repeatedly warned of the threat of targeted attacks?

How quickly we were treated to that cliched line (or iterations of it) that it’s people not guns that cause death. Naturally, each point are true. It’s possible to simultaneously pursue new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and keep guns away from its possible perpetrators.

In this metropolis of profound splendor, of clear azure skies above sea and shore, the water and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not seem quite the same again to the multitude who’ve observed that famous Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene violence.

We long right now for comprehension and meaning, for loved ones, and perhaps for the consolation of beauty in culture or the natural world.

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

But this is perhaps counterintuitively counterintuitive. For in these days of anxiety, anger, melancholy, confusion and loss we need 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 public life and society will be hard to find this extended, enervating summer.