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As Australia winds down for a customary Christmas holiday during languorous days of coast and blistering heat set to 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 characterize the national temperament after the anti-Jewish terrorist attack on Australian Jews during Bondi Hanukah festivities as one of mere discontent.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tenor of initial surprise, sorrow and terror is segueing to fury and bitter polarization.

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced concerns of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, vigorous official fight 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 deeply depleted. This is especially so for those of us fortunate enough never to have endured the animosity and fear of faith-based targeting 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 stances but no sense at all of that profound fragility.

This is a time when I regret not having a greater spiritual belief. I mourn, because believing in humanity – in our potential for kindness – has let us down so painfully. Something else, a greater power, is required.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such extreme examples of human decency. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The selflessness of bystanders. First responders – police officers and medical staff, those who ran towards the gunfire to help others, some publicly hailed but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the police tape still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of social, religious and cultural unity was admirably promoted by faith leaders. It was a call of compassion and acceptance – of bringing together rather than dividing in a moment of targeted violence.

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

Togetherness, hope and compassion was the message of faith.

‘Our public places may not look exactly as they did again.’

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

Some elected officials gravitated straight for the darkness, using tragedy as a cynical chance to question Australia’s migration rules.

Witness the dangerous rhetoric of division from veteran agitators 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 still active.

Politics has a daunting job to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is grieving and frightened and seeking the light and, not least, explanations to so many questions.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was assessed as probable, did such a large public Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a woefully insufficient security presence? Like how could the alleged killers have six guns in the family home when the security agency has so openly and consistently warned of the danger of targeted attacks?

How quickly we were treated to that tired argument (or versions of it) that it’s people not weapons that kill. Of course, each point are valid. It’s possible to at the same time seek new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and keep guns away from its possible actors.

In this city of immense beauty, of pristine blue heavens above ocean and sand, the water and the beaches – our communal areas – may not look quite the same again to the multitude who’ve noted that famous Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s horrific bloodshed.

We yearn right now for comprehension and meaning, for family, and perhaps for the solace of aesthetics in art or the natural world.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling Christmas party plans. Reflective solitude will seem more appropriate.

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

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

But sadly, all of the indicators are that unity in public life and society will be hard to find this extended, draining summer.