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As the nation settles into for a traditional Christmas holiday across slow-moving days of beach and scorching heat accompanied by the background of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the nation's summer atmosphere seems, unfortunately, like no other.

It would be a significant understatement to characterize the national temperament after the anti-Jewish violent assault on Jewish Australians during the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of mere discontent.

Across the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tenor of immediate surprise, sorrow and horror is segueing to fury and deep division.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed concerns of the Jewish community are now highly attuned. Just as, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a far more urgent, vigorous government and institutional fight against antisemitism with the right to demonstrate against genocide.

If ever there was a time for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our faith in mankind is so sorely depleted. This is especially so for those of us fortunate enough never to have endured the hatred and dread of faith-based persecution on this continent or anywhere else.

And yet the social media feeds keep spewing at us the banal instant opinions of those with inflammatory, divisive views but no sense at all of that terrifying fragility.

This is a period when I lament not having a stronger spiritual belief. I mourn, because believing in people – in mankind’s capacity for kindness – has failed us so painfully. Something else, something higher, is required.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such extreme instances of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. Emergency personnel – police officers and medical staff, those who ran towards the gunfire to aid others, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

When the police tape still waved in the wind all about Bondi, the necessity of community, faith-based and ethnic unity was laudably promoted by religious figures. It was a call of compassion and tolerance – of unifying rather than dividing in a moment of targeted violence.

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

Togetherness, light and compassion was the essence of faith.

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

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

Some politicians moved straight for the darkness, using the atrocity as a cynical chance to question Australia’s immigration policies.

Observe the harmful rhetoric of division from veteran agitators of Australian racial division, capitalizing on the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then read the words of political figures while the probe was still active.

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

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was assessed as probable, did such a significant public Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly insufficient security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns 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 iterations of it) that it’s people not guns that cause death. Naturally, each point are valid. It’s feasible to simultaneously seek new ways to prevent violent bigotry and prevent guns away from its potential perpetrators.

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

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

This weekend many Australians are cancelling Christmas party plans. Quiet contemplation will seem more in order.

But this is perhaps somewhat against instinct. For in these times of anxiety, outrage, melancholy, confusion and loss we require each other now more than ever.

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

But sadly, all of the indicators are that unity in public life and the community will be elusive this extended, draining summer.