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While the nation settles into for a traditional Christmas holiday across slow-moving days of beach and scorching heat accompanied by the soundtrack of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the country’s summer atmosphere seems, unfortunately, like no other.

It would be a significant understatement to describe the collective temperament after the antisemitic terrorist attack on Australian Jews during Bondi Hanukah celebrations as one of mere ennui.

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 anger and deep division.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced concerns of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Just as, they are attuned to balancing the need for a much more immediate, vigorous government and institutional fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

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

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

This is a time when I lament not having a greater spiritual belief. I mourn, because believing in humanity – in our capacity for compassion – has failed us so acutely. A different source, a greater power, is required.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such profound examples of human goodness. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – police officers and paramedics, those who charged into the danger to help fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unheralded.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of social, faith-based and cultural solidarity was laudably promoted by religious figures. It was a message of compassion and tolerance – of bringing together rather than splitting apart in a time of targeted violence.

Consistent with the symbolism of Hanukah (light amid darkness), there was so much appropriate evocation of the need for hope.

Togetherness, light and love was the message of faith.

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

And yet elements of the Australian polity reacted so disgustingly swiftly with division, finger-pointing and recrimination.

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

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

Politics has a formidable task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is mourning and frightened and looking for the light and, not least, answers to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the official terror alert was judged as likely, did such a large open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly inadequate security presence? Like how could the alleged killers have six guns in the family home when the security agency has so publicly and consistently warned of the threat of targeted attacks?

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

In this metropolis of profound beauty, of clear azure skies above sea and shore, the water and the coastline – our shared community spaces – may not seem entirely familiar again to the many who’ve noted that famous Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.

We yearn right now for understanding and meaning, for family, and perhaps for the consolation of aesthetics in art or nature.

This weekend many Australians are calling off holiday gathering plans. Quiet contemplation will feel more in order.

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

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

But sadly, all of the portents are that unity in public life and the community will be hard to find this extended, enervating summer.