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As Australia settles into for a customary Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of coast and blistering heat accompanied by the soundtrack of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the country’s summer atmosphere feels, sadly, like no other.

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

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tone of immediate shock, grief and terror is segueing to anger and bitter polarization.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed concerns of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Similarly, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, energetic official crackdown against antisemitism with the right to demonstrate against genocide.

If ever there was a time for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our faith in mankind is so sorely diminished. This is particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have experienced the animosity and fear of religious and ethnic persecution on this continent or elsewhere.

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

This is a period when I lament not having a greater faith. I lament, because having faith in humanity – in mankind’s potential for kindness – has let us down so acutely. A different source, something higher, is required.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have witnessed such profound examples of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. Emergency personnel – police officers and paramedics, those who charged into the gunfire to help fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

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

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

Unity, light and love was the essence of belief.

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

And yet elements of the political landscape responded so nauseatingly swiftly with fragmentation, finger-pointing and accusation.

Some elected officials moved straight for the darkness, using the atrocity as a cynical opportunity to question Australia’s migration rules.

Observe the dangerous message of division from longstanding agitators of societal discord, capitalizing on the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the words of political figures while the probe was ongoing.

Politics has a daunting job to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is grieving and frightened and seeking the light and, importantly, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was assessed as likely, did such a large public Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly insufficient security presence? Like how could the alleged killers have six guns in the residence when the security agency has so publicly and consistently alerted of the threat of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were subjected to that tired argument (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not guns that cause death. Naturally, both things are true. It’s possible to at the same time pursue new ways to prevent violent bigotry and prevent guns away from its potential perpetrators.

In this metropolis of profound splendor, of pristine blue heavens above ocean and sand, the water and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not look entirely familiar again to the multitude who’ve observed that iconic Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.

We long right now for comprehension and significance, for loved ones, and perhaps for the consolation of aesthetics in culture or nature.

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

But this is perhaps counterintuitively against instinct. For in these times of anxiety, outrage, melancholy, bewilderment and loss we need each other more than ever.

The comfort of togetherness – the human glue of the unity in the very word – is what we probably need most.

But tragically, all of the portents are that cohesion in public life and society will be elusive this extended, enervating summer.