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As Australia settles into for a traditional Christmas holiday across slow-moving days of coast and scorching heat set to the background of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the country’s summer atmosphere feels, sadly, like none before.

It would be a significant understatement to characterize the national disposition after the anti-Jewish violent assault on Australian Jews during the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of simple discontent.

Throughout the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tenor of initial surprise, sorrow and horror is segueing to anger and deep polarization.

Those who had not picked up on the frequently expressed fears of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Just as, they are attuned to balancing the need for a much more immediate, energetic government and institutional crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to demonstrate against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a time for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our faith in mankind is so deeply depleted. This is particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have endured the hatred and fear of faith-based targeting on this land or elsewhere.

And yet the algorithms keep spewing at us the banal instant opinions of those with blistering, polarizing stances but little understanding at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

This is a time when I regret not having a greater spiritual belief. I lament, because having faith in humanity – in our capacity for kindness – has failed us so acutely. A different source, a greater power, is needed.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such profound examples of human goodness. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and paramedics, those who charged into the danger to help fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

When the police tape still waved in the wind all about Bondi, the necessity of social, religious and ethnic unity was laudably championed by faith leaders. It was a call of love and tolerance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a time of antisemitic slaughter.

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

Togetherness, hope and compassion was the essence of faith.

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

And yet elements of the Australian polity reacted so disgustingly swiftly with division, blame and recrimination.

Some politicians gravitated straight for the darkness, using tragedy as a calculating opportunity to question Australia’s migration rules.

Witness the dangerous message of disunity from longstanding agitators of societal discord, exploiting the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the words of political figures while the investigation was still active.

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

Like why, when the official terror alert was assessed as probable, did such a significant open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a woefully inadequate protection? Like how could the alleged killers have six guns in the residence when the security agency has so openly and consistently alerted of the danger of targeted attacks?

How quickly we were subjected to that tired line (or iterations of it) that it’s people not weapons that kill. Naturally, each point are valid. It’s feasible to simultaneously pursue new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and keep guns away from its potential perpetrators.

In this metropolis of immense splendor, of clear blue heavens above ocean and shore, the water and the coastline – our shared community spaces – may not seem entirely familiar again to the multitude who’ve observed that iconic Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s horrific bloodshed.

We yearn right now for understanding and meaning, for loved ones, and perhaps for the solace of beauty in culture or nature.

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 days of fear, outrage, melancholy, confusion and loss we require each other more than ever.

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

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