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As Australia settles into for a customary Christmas holiday across languorous days of beach and blistering heat accompanied by the background of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the country’s summer atmosphere seems, unfortunately, like no other.

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

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

Those who had not picked up on the frequently expressed concerns of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Just as, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, energetic government and institutional crackdown against antisemitism with the freedom to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a moment for a national listening, it is now, when our belief in humanity is so deeply depleted. This is especially so for those of us lucky never to have endured the hatred and fear of faith-based persecution on this land or elsewhere.

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

This is a period when I regret not having a greater spiritual belief. I lament, because believing in people – in our capacity for compassion – has let us down so acutely. A different source, a greater power, is needed.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme examples of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. Emergency personnel – police officers and paramedics, those who ran towards the gunfire to aid fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

When the police tape still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the necessity of community, religious and ethnic unity was admirably promoted by religious figures. It was a call of compassion and acceptance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a time of antisemitic slaughter.

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

Togetherness, hope and love was the message of faith.

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

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

Some elected officials gravitated straight for the pessimism, using tragedy as a cynical opportunity to question Australia’s immigration policies.

Observe the harmful message of division from longstanding fomenters of Australian racial division, exploiting the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the statements of leadership aspirants while the probe was ongoing.

Politics has a daunting task to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is grieving and scared and seeking the hope and, importantly, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as likely, did such a large public Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly insufficient security presence? Like how could the alleged killers have multiple firearms in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and consistently alerted of the danger of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were subjected to that cliched line (or iterations of it) that it’s individuals not guns that kill. Of course, both things are valid. It’s possible to simultaneously pursue new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and prevent guns away from its possible actors.

In this city of profound beauty, of pristine azure skies above ocean and sand, the water and the coastline – our shared community spaces – may not seem entirely familiar again to the multitude who’ve observed that famous Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s obscene violence.

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

This weekend many Australians are calling off holiday gathering plans. Reflective solitude will feel more appropriate.

But this is perhaps counterintuitively counterintuitive. For in these days of fear, outrage, melancholy, bewilderment and loss 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 portents are that unity in politics and society will be elusive this extended, draining summer.