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While the nation settles into for a customary Christmas holiday across slow-moving days of coast and blistering heat set to the soundtrack of Test cricket and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer atmosphere feels, sadly, like none before.

It would be a dramatic oversimplification to characterize the national disposition after the anti-Jewish terrorist attack on Australian Jews during the beachside Hanukah festivities as one of mere ennui.

Across the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tenor of initial shock, grief and horror is segueing to anger and bitter polarization.

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced fears of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a far more urgent, vigorous official crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a moment for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our belief in humanity is so sorely diminished. This is especially so for those of us lucky never to have experienced the hatred and dread of religious and ethnic targeting on this land or anywhere else.

And yet the social media feeds keep spewing at us the trite hot takes of those with inflammatory, polarizing views but no sense at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

This is a time when I lament not having a greater faith. I mourn, because believing in people – in our capacity for compassion – has let us down so painfully. Something else, something higher, is needed.

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

When the barrier cordon still waved in the wind all about Bondi, the imperative of community, faith-based and cultural solidarity was laudably championed by religious figures. It was a message of love and tolerance – of unifying 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 lightness.

Unity, hope and compassion was the essence of faith.

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

And yet segments of the political landscape responded so nauseatingly swiftly with division, blame and recrimination.

Some elected officials moved straight for the pessimism, using the atrocity as a calculating chance to challenge Australia’s migration rules.

Witness the dangerous rhetoric of disunity from longstanding fomenters of Australian racial division, exploiting the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then read the words of political figures while the probe was ongoing.

Politics has a daunting task to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is mourning and frightened and looking for the light and, importantly, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was assessed as likely, did such a significant open-air Hanukah event go ahead with such a woefully inadequate security presence? Like how could the alleged killers have multiple firearms in the family home when the security agency has so openly and consistently warned of the threat of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were treated to that cliched line (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not weapons that kill. Of course, each point are valid. It’s possible to at the same time seek new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and keep firearms away from its possible perpetrators.

In this city of immense splendor, of clear azure skies above sea and shore, the water and the coastline – 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 yearn right now for understanding and significance, for loved ones, and perhaps for the consolation of beauty in culture or nature.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling holiday gathering plans. Quiet contemplation will seem more appropriate.

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

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

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