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As Australia winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday across languorous days of beach and blistering heat set to the background of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the nation's summer atmosphere feels, sadly, like no other.

It would be a dramatic understatement to describe the national temperament after the anti-Jewish terrorist attack on Jewish Australians during Bondi Hanukah celebrations as one of simple discontent.

Across the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of the nation's urban centers – a tone of immediate shock, grief and horror is segueing to anger and deep polarization.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed concerns of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, vigorous government and institutional crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to demonstrate against mass atrocities.

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

And yet the algorithms keep churning out at us the trite hot takes of those with blistering, polarizing views but little understanding at all of that terrifying fragility.

This is a time when I regret not having a greater faith. I lament, because having faith in people – in mankind’s potential for compassion – has let us down so acutely. Something else, a greater power, is required.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have seen such extreme examples of human goodness. The heroism of individuals. The bravery of those present. First responders – police officers and medical staff, those who charged into the danger to aid fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still waved in the wind all about Bondi, the necessity of social, religious and ethnic solidarity was laudably promoted by religious figures. It was a message of compassion and tolerance – of bringing together rather than splitting apart in a time of targeted violence.

Consistent with the symbolism of the Festival of Lights (light amid gloom), there was so much appropriate evocation of the need for lightness.

Togetherness, hope and compassion was the essence of belief.

‘Our public places may not appear exactly as they did again.’

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

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

Witness the dangerous rhetoric of division from longstanding agitators of Australian racial division, capitalizing on the attack before the site was even cold. Then read the words of leadership aspirants while the investigation was still active.

Government has a daunting job to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is grieving and scared and seeking the light and, not least, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the official terror alert was judged as probable, did such a large public Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a woefully insufficient security presence? Like how could the alleged killers have six guns in the residence when the security agency has so publicly and consistently alerted of the danger of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were subjected to that cliched line (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not weapons that kill. Of course, each point are valid. It’s possible to simultaneously seek new ways to stop violent bigotry and prevent firearms away from its possible actors.

In this city of immense splendor, of pristine blue heavens above ocean and sand, the water and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not seem quite the same again to the many who’ve noted that iconic Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene violence.

We long right now for comprehension and significance, for loved ones, and perhaps for the solace of aesthetics in art or the natural world.

This weekend many Australians are calling off Christmas party plans. Quiet contemplation will feel more appropriate.

But this is perhaps counterintuitively against instinct. For in these times of anxiety, anger, melancholy, confusion and grief we require 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 portents are that unity in politics and society will be hard to find this extended, enervating summer.