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As the nation winds down for a customary Christmas holiday across languorous days of beach and scorching heat set to the background of Test cricket and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer mood feels, unfortunately, like no other.

It would be a dramatic understatement to describe the collective disposition after the antisemitic terrorist attack on Jewish Australians during Bondi Hanukah festivities as one of simple discontent.

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

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced concerns of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Just as, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, 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 countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our belief in mankind is so deeply depleted. This is particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have experienced the hatred and dread of religious and ethnic persecution on this continent or anywhere else.

And yet the social media feeds keep churning out at us the banal instant opinions of those with blistering, divisive views but little understanding at all of that terrifying fragility.

This is a time when I regret not having a greater spiritual belief. I mourn, because believing in people – in our potential for kindness – has failed us so acutely. A different source, a greater power, is required.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme examples of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. First responders – law enforcement and paramedics, those who ran towards the gunfire to help others, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the necessity of social, faith-based and cultural unity was laudably promoted by religious figures. It was a message of compassion and acceptance – of bringing together rather than splitting apart in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

In keeping with the symbolism of the Festival of Lights (illumination amid darkness), there was so much fitting evocation of the need for hope.

Togetherness, light and compassion was the essence 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 fragmentation, finger-pointing and recrimination.

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

Observe the harmful message of division from veteran agitators of Australian racial division, exploiting the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the statements of political figures while the investigation was ongoing.

Government has a formidable job to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is mourning and frightened and seeking the light and, not least, answers to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the official terror alert was assessed as probable, did such a large open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly inadequate security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the family home when the security agency has so publicly and repeatedly alerted of the danger of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were subjected to that cliched line (or iterations of it) that it’s individuals not weapons that kill. Naturally, both things are valid. It’s feasible to simultaneously pursue new ways to prevent violent bigotry and keep firearms away from its possible actors.

In this city of profound splendor, of pristine blue heavens above ocean and sand, the ocean and the beaches – our communal areas – may not seem entirely familiar again to the multitude who’ve observed that famous Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene violence.

We yearn right now for comprehension and significance, for family, and perhaps for the solace of beauty in culture or nature.

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

But this is perhaps counterintuitively against instinct. For in these times of anxiety, outrage, melancholy, confusion and grief we require 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 sadly, all of the portents are that unity in public life and society will be hard to find this extended, draining summer.