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While the nation winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of beach and blistering heat set to the background of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the country’s summer mood seems, sadly, like none before.

It would be a dramatic oversimplification to characterize the national disposition after the antisemitic violent assault on Jewish Australians during the beachside Hanukah festivities as one of simple ennui.

Throughout the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tone of initial surprise, sorrow and horror is shifting to anger and deep division.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed concerns of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, vigorous official crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to demonstrate against genocide.

If ever there was a moment for a national listening, it is now, when our belief in humanity is so deeply diminished. This is especially so for those of us fortunate enough never to have experienced the animosity and fear of faith-based persecution on this continent or anywhere else.

And yet the social media feeds keep spewing at us the trite instant opinions of those with blistering, polarizing views but little understanding at all of that profound fragility.

This is a time when I lament not having a stronger spiritual belief. I mourn, because having faith in humanity – in mankind’s capacity for compassion – has let us down so painfully. Something else, something higher, is needed.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme instances of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The selflessness of bystanders. First responders – law enforcement and paramedics, those who charged into the gunfire to help others, some publicly hailed but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the police tape still waved wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of social, religious and ethnic unity was admirably championed by religious figures. It was a message of love and tolerance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

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

Togetherness, hope and compassion was the message of belief.

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

And yet segments of the political landscape reacted so disgustingly quickly with division, blame and accusation.

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

Witness the dangerous message of division from veteran agitators of societal discord, capitalizing on the attack before the site was even cold. Then consider the words of political figures while the investigation was still active.

Government has a formidable task to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is grieving and frightened and looking for the hope and, importantly, answers to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the official terror alert was judged as probable, did such a significant public Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly insufficient security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have multiple firearms in the family home when the security agency has so publicly and repeatedly warned of the threat of antisemitic violence?

How quickly we were treated to that cliched argument (or iterations of it) that it’s people not guns that cause death. Of course, each point are valid. It’s feasible to at the same time seek new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and keep guns away from its potential perpetrators.

In this city of immense beauty, of pristine blue heavens above sea and shore, the water and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not look quite the same again to the multitude who’ve noted that iconic Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene violence.

We yearn right now for understanding and meaning, for loved ones, and perhaps for the consolation of beauty in art or the natural world.

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

But this is perhaps counterintuitively against instinct. For in these days of fear, anger, 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 probably need most.

But sadly, all of the portents are that unity in public life and the community will be hard to find this extended, enervating summer.