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As Australia settles into for a traditional Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of coast and blistering heat accompanied by the background of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the country’s summer mood seems, unfortunately, like none before.

It would be a dramatic understatement to describe the collective disposition after the antisemitic terrorist attack on Jewish Australians during the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of mere ennui.

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

Those who had previously missed the often voiced fears of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Just as, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a much more immediate, energetic official fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to demonstrate against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a moment for a national listening, it is now, when our faith in mankind is so sorely diminished. This is particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have experienced the hatred and fear of religious and ethnic persecution on this continent or elsewhere.

And yet the algorithms keep churning out at us the banal instant opinions of those with inflammatory, divisive stances but no sense at all of that profound vulnerability.

This is a time when I lament not having a greater spiritual belief. I lament, because believing in humanity – in our capacity for compassion – has failed us so painfully. Something else, something higher, is required.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such profound examples of human decency. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. First responders – police officers and medical staff, those who ran towards the danger to aid fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of social, religious and ethnic unity was admirably promoted by religious figures. It was a message of compassion and tolerance – of unifying rather than dividing in a time of antisemitic slaughter.

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

Togetherness, light and compassion was the essence of belief.

‘Our shared community spaces may not look exactly as they did again.’

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

Some elected officials gravitated straight for the pessimism, using the atrocity as a calculating opportunity to challenge Australia’s migration rules.

Witness the harmful message of disunity from veteran agitators of societal discord, capitalizing on the attack before the site was even cold. Then consider the statements of political figures while the probe was still active.

Government has a formidable job to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is grieving and scared and looking for the hope and, importantly, explanations to so many questions.

Like why, when the official terror alert was judged as likely, did such a significant open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a woefully insufficient security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the residence when the security agency has so openly and consistently warned of the threat of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were subjected to that cliched argument (or iterations of it) that it’s people not guns that kill. Naturally, both things are valid. It’s feasible to simultaneously seek new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and keep guns away from its possible perpetrators.

In this metropolis of profound splendor, of clear azure skies above ocean and sand, the ocean and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not seem entirely familiar again to the multitude who’ve noted that famous Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene violence.

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

This weekend many Australians are calling off Christmas party plans. Quiet contemplation will feel more in order.

But this is perhaps somewhat counterintuitive. For in these days of anxiety, anger, melancholy, bewilderment and loss we need 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 tragically, all of the indicators are that cohesion in public life and the community will be elusive this extended, enervating summer.