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As Australia winds down for a customary Christmas holiday across slow-moving days of coast and blistering heat accompanied by the soundtrack of Test cricket and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer mood feels, sadly, like none before.

It would be a significant understatement to characterize the collective temperament after the anti-Jewish terrorist attack on Jewish Australians during the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of simple ennui.

Throughout the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of the nation's urban centers – a tone of immediate surprise, grief and horror is shifting to fury and deep division.

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced fears of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, energetic official crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a moment for a national listening, it is now, when our faith in mankind is so deeply depleted. This is particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have experienced the hatred and dread of faith-based persecution on this continent or anywhere else.

And yet the social media feeds keep churning out at us the trite instant opinions of those with inflammatory, divisive views but little understanding at all of that terrifying fragility.

This is a period when I lament not having a stronger spiritual belief. I mourn, because having faith in people – in mankind’s potential for kindness – has let us down so acutely. Something else, a greater power, is needed.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have witnessed such profound examples of human decency. The heroism of individuals. The bravery of those present. First responders – police officers and medical staff, those who charged into the gunfire to help fellow humans, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

When the police tape still waved wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of social, faith-based and ethnic solidarity was admirably championed by faith leaders. It was a message of love and acceptance – of bringing together rather than dividing in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

In keeping with the symbolism of Hanukah (light amid gloom), there was so much fitting reference of the need for hope.

Unity, light and love was the essence of belief.

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

And yet elements of the Australian polity reacted so disgustingly quickly with division, finger-pointing and accusation.

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

Witness the dangerous rhetoric of disunity from longstanding fomenters of Australian racial division, capitalizing on the massacre before the site was even cold. Then consider the words of leadership aspirants while the probe was still active.

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

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was assessed as likely, did such a significant public Hanukah event go ahead with such a woefully inadequate protection? Like how could the accused attackers have multiple firearms in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and consistently warned of the threat of targeted attacks?

How quickly we were subjected to that cliched argument (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not guns that cause death. Naturally, each point are valid. It’s possible to at the same time pursue new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and prevent guns away from its potential perpetrators.

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

We long right now for understanding and meaning, for loved ones, and perhaps for the solace of beauty in art or nature.

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

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

The reassurance of togetherness – the binding force of the unity in the very word – is what we probably need most.

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