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While the nation winds down for a customary Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of coast and blistering heat accompanied by the soundtrack of sporting matches and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer mood seems, unfortunately, like none before.

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

Across the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tenor of initial shock, sorrow and terror is segueing to anger and deep division.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced fears of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are attuned to balancing the need for a much more immediate, vigorous government and institutional fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to demonstrate against genocide.

If ever there was a time for a national listening, it is now, when our faith in mankind is so deeply 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 banal instant opinions of those with inflammatory, divisive views but little understanding at all of that profound vulnerability.

This is a period when I regret not having a greater faith. I lament, because believing in people – in our capacity for kindness – has failed us so acutely. Something else, a greater power, is needed.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such profound examples of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The selflessness of bystanders. First responders – law enforcement and medical staff, those who charged into the gunfire to help fellow humans, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered in the wind all about Bondi, the imperative of social, faith-based and cultural solidarity was laudably championed by faith leaders. It was a call of love and acceptance – of bringing together rather than dividing in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

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

Togetherness, hope and love was the message of belief.

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

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

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

Observe the harmful rhetoric of disunity from longstanding fomenters of societal discord, capitalizing on the attack before the site was even cold. Then read the words of leadership aspirants while the probe was ongoing.

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

Like why, when the official terror alert was assessed as likely, did such a large open-air Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly insufficient protection? Like how could the accused attackers have multiple firearms in the family home when the security agency has so publicly and consistently warned of the threat of targeted attacks?

How quickly we were subjected to that cliched argument (or versions of it) that it’s people not weapons that kill. Naturally, each point are true. It’s feasible to at the same time pursue new ways to prevent violent bigotry and prevent guns away from its potential perpetrators.

In this city of profound splendor, of pristine azure skies above sea and shore, the water and the beaches – our communal areas – may not look quite the same again to the many who’ve noted that famous Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s horrific bloodshed.

We yearn right now for understanding and meaning, for family, and perhaps for the consolation of beauty in culture or the natural world.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling holiday gathering plans. Reflective solitude will seem more in order.

But this is perhaps somewhat counterintuitive. For in these times of fear, anger, melancholy, bewilderment and grief we need each other more than ever.

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

But tragically, all of the indicators are that unity in politics and society will be hard to find this long, enervating summer.