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As Australia settles into for a customary Christmas holiday during languorous days of coast and scorching heat set to the soundtrack of Test cricket and insect sounds, this year the country’s summer mood seems, unfortunately, like none before.

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

Across the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tenor of immediate shock, sorrow and horror is shifting to fury and bitter division.

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced fears of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a far more urgent, vigorous official crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to demonstrate against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a moment for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our belief in humanity is so deeply depleted. This is especially so for those of us fortunate enough never to have experienced the animosity and fear of religious and ethnic persecution on this land or anywhere else.

And yet the algorithms keep churning out at us the banal instant opinions of those with blistering, divisive stances but little understanding at all of that profound fragility.

This is a period when I lament not having a stronger spiritual belief. I mourn, because believing in humanity – in our capacity for kindness – has failed us so painfully. A different source, something higher, is needed.

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

When the barrier cordon still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of social, faith-based and cultural unity was laudably promoted by religious figures. It was a message of love and acceptance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

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

Togetherness, light and love was the message of belief.

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

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

Some elected officials gravitated straight for the darkness, using the atrocity as a calculating opportunity to question Australia’s immigration policies.

Observe the dangerous message of disunity from veteran agitators of societal discord, exploiting the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then read the words of leadership aspirants while the probe was ongoing.

Government has a formidable job to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is mourning and scared and seeking the light and, importantly, answers to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the official terror alert was judged as likely, did such a large open-air Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly inadequate security presence? Like how could the alleged killers have multiple firearms in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and repeatedly warned of the danger of targeted attacks?

How quickly we were subjected to that cliched argument (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not weapons that kill. Naturally, both things are valid. It’s feasible to at the same time seek new ways to prevent violent bigotry and keep guns away from its potential perpetrators.

In this metropolis of immense splendor, of pristine azure skies above ocean and sand, the water and the coastline – our communal areas – may not look quite the same again to the multitude who’ve observed that famous Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s horrific violence.

We yearn right now for comprehension and significance, for family, and perhaps for the solace of aesthetics in culture or the natural world.

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

But this is perhaps somewhat against instinct. For in these times of anxiety, anger, melancholy, confusion and loss we require each other more than ever.

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

But sadly, all of the portents are that unity in public life and the community will be hard to find this extended, enervating summer.