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As the nation winds down for a customary Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of coast and blistering heat accompanied by the background of Test cricket and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer mood feels, unfortunately, like no other.

It would be a significant oversimplification to characterize the collective disposition after the anti-Jewish terrorist attack on Australian Jews 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 the nation's urban centers – a tone of initial surprise, grief and terror is segueing to fury and deep division.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced concerns of the Jewish community are now highly attuned. Just as, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a far more urgent, energetic official crackdown against antisemitism with the freedom to demonstrate against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a moment for a national listening, it is now, when our belief in mankind is so deeply diminished. This is particularly so for those of us lucky never to have endured the hatred and dread of faith-based persecution on this continent or elsewhere.

And yet the social media feeds keep churning out at us the trite hot takes of those with inflammatory, divisive stances but no sense at all of that terrifying fragility.

This is a period when I regret not having a greater spiritual belief. I lament, because having faith in humanity – in mankind’s capacity for kindness – has let us down so acutely. Something else, a greater power, is needed.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have witnessed such profound examples of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. First responders – police officers and medical staff, those who charged into the gunfire to help 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 necessity of social, religious and cultural solidarity was laudably championed by religious figures. It was a message of love and acceptance – of bringing together rather than splitting apart in a moment of targeted violence.

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

Unity, hope and compassion was the essence of faith.

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

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

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

Observe the harmful rhetoric of disunity from longstanding agitators of Australian racial division, capitalizing on the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then read the statements of political figures while the investigation was ongoing.

Politics has a daunting job to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is mourning and frightened and seeking the hope and, not least, explanations to so many questions.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as probable, did such a significant open-air Hanukah event go ahead with such a woefully inadequate protection? Like how could the accused attackers have multiple firearms in the residence when the domestic intelligence organisation has so openly and consistently alerted of the danger of targeted attacks?

How quickly we were subjected to that tired argument (or versions of it) that it’s people not weapons that kill. Naturally, each point are true. It’s feasible to at the same time pursue new ways to stop violent bigotry and keep guns away from its potential actors.

In this city of immense splendor, of clear azure skies above ocean and sand, the ocean and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not look entirely familiar again to the multitude who’ve noted that iconic 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 solace of aesthetics in culture or nature.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling Christmas party plans. Quiet contemplation will feel more appropriate.

But this is perhaps counterintuitively counterintuitive. For in these days of anxiety, anger, sadness, bewilderment and loss we require each other more than ever.

The comfort of togetherness – the binding force of the unity in the very word – is what we likely need most.

But tragically, all of the indicators are that unity in public life and the community will be hard to find this long, enervating summer.