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While the nation winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday during languorous days of beach and blistering heat accompanied by the background of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the nation's summer mood seems, sadly, like no other.

It would be a significant oversimplification to describe the national temperament after the antisemitic terrorist attack on Jewish Australians during the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of simple discontent.

Throughout the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tenor of initial surprise, sorrow and terror is segueing to fury and deep polarization.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced fears of the Jewish community are now highly attuned. Just as, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, vigorous official fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a time for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our faith in mankind is so sorely depleted. This is especially so for those of us lucky never to have experienced the hatred and dread of religious and ethnic persecution on this land or elsewhere.

And yet the social media feeds keep spewing at us the trite instant opinions of those with inflammatory, divisive stances but no sense at all of that profound vulnerability.

This is a time when I lament not having a greater spiritual belief. I lament, because having faith in people – in mankind’s potential for compassion – has let us down so acutely. Something else, a greater power, is required.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have witnessed such profound examples 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 help others, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

When the police tape still fluttered in the wind all about Bondi, the imperative of social, religious and ethnic unity was admirably championed by faith leaders. It was a call of love and tolerance – of unifying rather than dividing in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

Consistent with the meaning of Hanukah (light amid gloom), there was so much fitting evocation of the need for hope.

Togetherness, hope and love was the essence of belief.

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

And yet elements of the political landscape reacted so nauseatingly swiftly with fragmentation, blame and recrimination.

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

Witness the harmful message of disunity from veteran agitators of Australian racial division, capitalizing on the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then read the statements of leadership aspirants while the probe was ongoing.

Government has a formidable task to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is mourning and scared and looking for the hope and, importantly, answers to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was assessed as probable, did such a significant 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 domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and repeatedly alerted of the threat of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were treated to that cliched line (or iterations of it) that it’s individuals not guns that cause death. Naturally, each point are true. It’s feasible to at the same time pursue new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and keep guns away from its potential actors.

In this metropolis of immense splendor, of clear blue heavens above ocean and shore, 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 incongruous with last weekend’s horrific bloodshed.

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

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

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

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

But tragically, all of the indicators are that cohesion in politics and the community will be hard to find this extended, draining summer.