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As the nation settles into for a customary Christmas holiday during languorous days of coast and blistering heat set to the soundtrack of Test cricket and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer atmosphere feels, unfortunately, like no other.

It would be a dramatic oversimplification to characterize the national disposition after the antisemitic violent assault on Australian Jews during Bondi Hanukah celebrations as one of mere discontent.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tone of immediate shock, grief and terror is segueing to anger and bitter division.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced concerns of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Just as, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, vigorous official crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a time for a national listening, it is now, when our belief in humanity is so sorely depleted. This is especially so for those of us fortunate enough never to have endured the hatred and dread of religious and ethnic persecution on this continent or elsewhere.

And yet the algorithms keep churning out at us the trite hot takes of those with blistering, polarizing stances but no sense at all of that terrifying fragility.

This is a period when I regret not having a greater spiritual belief. I lament, because believing in people – in our capacity for kindness – has failed us so acutely. Something else, a greater power, is needed.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme instances of human decency. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – 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 unheralded.

When the barrier cordon still waved in the wind all about Bondi, the necessity of community, religious and cultural unity was laudably championed by faith leaders. It was a message of compassion and acceptance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a moment of targeted violence.

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

Unity, light and compassion was the essence of faith.

‘Our shared community spaces may not appear exactly as they did again.’

And yet elements of the political landscape responded so disgustingly swiftly with division, finger-pointing and recrimination.

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

Witness the dangerous message of disunity from veteran agitators of societal discord, exploiting the massacre before the site was even cold. Then consider the statements of leadership aspirants while the probe was ongoing.

Politics has a daunting job to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is grieving and frightened and looking for the light and, not least, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the official terror alert was assessed as likely, did such a large public Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly insufficient security presence? Like how could the alleged killers have multiple firearms in the family home when the security agency has so openly and repeatedly warned of the threat of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were treated to that cliched argument (or iterations of it) that it’s individuals not guns that kill. Naturally, each point are true. It’s possible to simultaneously seek new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and prevent firearms away from its potential actors.

In this metropolis of profound beauty, of clear azure skies above ocean and shore, the ocean and the coastline – our communal areas – may not look entirely familiar again to the many who’ve noted that famous Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.

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

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

But this is perhaps somewhat counterintuitive. For in these times of anxiety, anger, melancholy, bewilderment 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 indicators are that cohesion in public life and society will be elusive this extended, enervating summer.