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As Australia winds down for a customary Christmas holiday across languorous days of beach and scorching heat accompanied by the background of sporting matches and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer atmosphere feels, sadly, like no other.

It would be a dramatic oversimplification to describe the collective temperament after the anti-Jewish terrorist attack on Jewish Australians during Bondi Hanukah festivities as one of simple ennui.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tenor of initial shock, grief and horror is shifting to fury and bitter division.

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced fears of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, vigorous government and institutional crackdown against antisemitism with the right to peacefully protest against genocide.

If ever there was a time for a national listening, it is now, when our belief in mankind is so deeply diminished. This is particularly so for those of us lucky never to have experienced the animosity and fear of religious and ethnic persecution on this land or elsewhere.

And yet the social media feeds keep churning out at us the trite instant opinions of those with blistering, divisive views but little understanding at all of that terrifying fragility.

This is a time when I regret not having a stronger faith. I lament, because having faith in humanity – in our capacity for kindness – has failed us so acutely. A different source, something higher, is required.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have witnessed such profound instances of human goodness. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. First responders – police officers and paramedics, those who charged into the gunfire to aid others, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered in the wind all about Bondi, the necessity of social, religious and cultural unity was admirably promoted by religious figures. It was a call of love and acceptance – of bringing together rather than dividing in a time of targeted violence.

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

Togetherness, light and compassion was the message of faith.

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

And yet elements of the political landscape responded so nauseatingly quickly with division, blame and accusation.

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

Observe the harmful message of division from longstanding fomenters of societal discord, capitalizing on the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the words of leadership aspirants while the investigation was still active.

Government has a daunting job to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is mourning and frightened and looking for the light and, importantly, explanations to so many questions.

Like why, when the official terror alert 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 accused attackers have six guns in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and consistently warned of the threat of antisemitic violence?

How quickly we were subjected to that tired line (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not guns that kill. Naturally, both things are valid. It’s possible to simultaneously pursue new ways to prevent violent bigotry and keep guns away from its potential perpetrators.

In this city of immense splendor, of pristine blue heavens above sea and shore, the ocean and the coastline – our shared community spaces – may not look quite the same again to the multitude who’ve observed that iconic Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s obscene violence.

We long right now for understanding and meaning, 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 feel more in order.

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

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

But sadly, all of the indicators are that cohesion in public life and the community will be hard to find this long, enervating summer.