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As the nation winds down for a customary 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 atmosphere feels, unfortunately, like none before.

It would be a dramatic understatement to describe the national disposition after the antisemitic terrorist attack on Jewish Australians during the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of simple ennui.

Across the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of the nation's urban centers – a tenor of initial surprise, sorrow and horror is shifting to anger and deep division.

Those who had not picked up on the frequently expressed concerns of the Jewish community are now highly attuned. Similarly, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, energetic government and institutional fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to demonstrate against genocide.

If ever there was a time for a national listening, it is now, when our faith in humanity is so sorely diminished. This is especially so for those of us fortunate enough never to have endured the hatred and dread of faith-based targeting on this land or anywhere else.

And yet the algorithms keep spewing at us the banal hot takes of those with inflammatory, divisive views but no sense at all of that profound vulnerability.

This is a time when I lament not having a stronger faith. I lament, because believing in people – in our capacity for kindness – has let us down so painfully. A different source, something higher, is needed.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such profound instances of human goodness. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – police officers and medical staff, those who ran towards the gunfire to help fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered in the wind all about Bondi, the necessity of community, religious and cultural unity was laudably championed by faith leaders. It was a call of love and tolerance – of bringing together rather than dividing in a time of targeted violence.

Consistent with the symbolism of the Festival of Lights (light amid darkness), there was so much appropriate reference of the need for lightness.

Unity, hope and love was the essence of belief.

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

And yet segments of the Australian polity reacted so nauseatingly quickly with division, blame and accusation.

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

Witness the dangerous message of division from longstanding fomenters of Australian racial division, exploiting the attack before the site was even cold. Then read the statements of leadership aspirants while the probe was ongoing.

Politics has a formidable job to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is grieving and scared and looking for the light and, importantly, answers to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was assessed as likely, did such a large public Hanukah event go ahead with such a woefully inadequate security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the residence when the security agency has so openly and consistently alerted of the danger of antisemitic violence?

How quickly we were treated to that cliched argument (or iterations of it) that it’s individuals not guns that kill. Of course, each point are valid. It’s feasible to simultaneously seek new ways to prevent violent bigotry and prevent firearms away from its possible actors.

In this metropolis of immense beauty, of pristine azure skies above ocean and sand, the ocean and the coastline – our communal areas – may not look entirely familiar again to the many who’ve noted that iconic Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s horrific bloodshed.

We long right now for comprehension and meaning, for loved ones, and perhaps for the solace of beauty in culture or the natural world.

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

But this is perhaps somewhat counterintuitive. For in these times of fear, anger, melancholy, confusion and grief we require each other now 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 indicators are that unity in public life and the community will be hard to find this long, draining summer.