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While the nation winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday during languorous days of beach and scorching heat accompanied by the soundtrack of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the nation's summer mood feels, unfortunately, like none before.

It would be a dramatic oversimplification to characterize the national disposition after the anti-Jewish violent assault on Jewish Australians during Bondi Hanukah festivities as one of simple ennui.

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

Those who had not picked up on the frequently expressed fears of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, vigorous government and institutional fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to peacefully protest against genocide.

If ever there was a time for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our faith in humanity is so sorely depleted. This is particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have endured the animosity and fear of religious and ethnic persecution on this continent or elsewhere.

And yet the social media feeds keep spewing at us the trite hot takes of those with inflammatory, divisive stances but no sense at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

This is a period when I regret not having a stronger spiritual belief. I mourn, because believing in people – in our potential for kindness – has let us down so painfully. A different source, something higher, is required.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have seen such profound instances of human decency. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – police officers and paramedics, those who charged into the danger to help others, some publicly hailed but for the most part unnamed and unheralded.

When the police tape still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the necessity of social, religious and cultural solidarity was admirably championed by religious figures. It was a call of love and tolerance – of bringing together rather than splitting apart in a moment of targeted violence.

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

Togetherness, light and compassion was the message of belief.

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

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

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

Observe the harmful rhetoric of disunity from veteran agitators of societal discord, capitalizing on the attack before the site was even cold. Then consider the words 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 looking for the light and, not least, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as probable, did such a significant open-air Hanukah event go ahead with such a woefully inadequate protection? Like how could the accused attackers have multiple firearms in the residence when the domestic intelligence organisation has so openly and repeatedly warned of the threat of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were treated to that tired line (or iterations of it) that it’s people not weapons that kill. Of course, each point are valid. It’s feasible to at the same time pursue new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and keep firearms away from its potential perpetrators.

In this metropolis of profound beauty, of clear azure skies above sea and sand, the ocean and the beaches – our communal areas – 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 horrific bloodshed.

We long right now for comprehension and significance, for loved ones, and perhaps for the consolation of aesthetics in art or nature.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling Christmas party plans. Reflective solitude will feel more appropriate.

But this is perhaps counterintuitively against instinct. For in these days of anxiety, outrage, melancholy, confusion and grief we require each other more than ever.

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

But tragically, all of the portents are that cohesion in politics and society will be elusive this extended, enervating summer.