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While the nation winds down for a customary Christmas holiday across slow-moving days of coast and blistering heat set to the soundtrack of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the country’s summer atmosphere seems, sadly, like none before.

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

Across the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tone of immediate surprise, grief and terror is segueing to anger and deep division.

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced concerns of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Similarly, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, vigorous government and institutional crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to demonstrate against genocide.

If ever there was a moment for a national listening, it is now, when our belief in mankind is so sorely diminished. This is especially so for those of us lucky never to have endured the animosity and dread of faith-based persecution on this land or anywhere else.

And yet the algorithms keep churning out at us the trite hot takes of those with blistering, divisive views but no sense at all of that profound vulnerability.

This is a period when I lament not having a greater faith. I lament, because having faith in humanity – in our potential for compassion – has let us down so painfully. Something else, a greater power, is required.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have seen such extreme examples of human decency. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. First responders – law enforcement and medical staff, those who charged into the danger to help others, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unheralded.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered in the wind all about Bondi, the imperative of social, religious and ethnic solidarity was admirably championed by faith leaders. It was a message of love and acceptance – of bringing together rather than splitting apart in a time of antisemitic slaughter.

In keeping with the meaning of the Festival of Lights (illumination amid darkness), there was so much fitting evocation of the need for hope.

Unity, light and compassion was the essence of belief.

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

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

Some politicians gravitated straight for the pessimism, using tragedy as a calculating opportunity to challenge Australia’s immigration policies.

Witness the dangerous rhetoric of division from veteran agitators of societal discord, capitalizing on the massacre before the site was even cold. Then consider the words of leadership aspirants while the investigation was ongoing.

Politics has a daunting job to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is grieving and scared and looking for the hope and, importantly, answers to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as likely, did such a significant public Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly insufficient protection? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the residence when the security agency has so publicly and repeatedly alerted of the threat of targeted attacks?

How quickly we were treated to that cliched argument (or versions of it) that it’s people not guns that cause death. Of course, both things are true. It’s possible to at the same time pursue new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and keep guns away from its possible perpetrators.

In this metropolis of profound beauty, of clear azure skies above sea and sand, the water and the beaches – our communal areas – may not look quite the same again to the many who’ve observed that iconic Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s obscene violence.

We long right now for comprehension and meaning, for family, and perhaps for the solace 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 somewhat against instinct. For in these days of fear, anger, melancholy, confusion and grief we need each other more than ever.

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

But tragically, all of the portents are that cohesion in public life and the community will be hard to find this extended, draining summer.