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While the nation settles into for a traditional Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of beach and scorching heat set to the soundtrack of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the nation's summer atmosphere seems, sadly, like no other.

It would be a significant oversimplification to characterize the collective disposition after the antisemitic terrorist attack on Australian Jews during the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of mere discontent.

Across the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of the nation's urban centers – a tone of immediate surprise, grief and terror is shifting to fury and bitter division.

Those who had not picked up on the frequently expressed fears of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, vigorous official crackdown against antisemitism with the right to peacefully protest against genocide.

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

And yet the algorithms keep churning out at us the banal hot takes of those with inflammatory, divisive views but no sense at all of that terrifying fragility.

This is a time when I lament not having a stronger faith. I lament, because having faith in people – in our capacity for kindness – has let us down so painfully. A different source, a greater power, is required.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such profound instances of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and paramedics, those who charged into the gunfire to aid fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

When the police tape still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of social, religious and ethnic unity was admirably promoted by faith leaders. It was a message of love and acceptance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a time of antisemitic slaughter.

Consistent with the meaning of the Festival of Lights (illumination amid gloom), there was so much fitting evocation of the need for lightness.

Unity, light and compassion was the essence of faith.

‘Our public places may not appear quite the same again.’

And yet elements of the political landscape responded so disgustingly swiftly with fragmentation, blame and recrimination.

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

Witness the dangerous rhetoric of division from veteran agitators of societal discord, capitalizing on the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then read the statements of political figures while the probe was still active.

Politics has a daunting job to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is grieving and scared and seeking the hope and, importantly, explanations to so many questions.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was assessed as probable, did such a large open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a woefully inadequate security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have multiple firearms in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and repeatedly warned of the danger of targeted attacks?

How quickly we were subjected to that cliched line (or iterations of it) that it’s people not weapons that kill. Of course, both things are valid. It’s feasible to simultaneously seek new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and prevent firearms away from its potential perpetrators.

In this city of immense beauty, of clear azure skies above ocean and shore, the ocean and the beaches – our communal areas – may not seem quite the same 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 family, and perhaps for the solace of aesthetics in culture or the natural world.

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

But this is perhaps counterintuitively against instinct. For in these times of fear, anger, sadness, confusion and grief we need each other now more than ever.

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

But tragically, all of the indicators are that cohesion in public life and the community will be elusive this long, draining summer.