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As the nation winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday across languorous days of coast and scorching heat accompanied by the background of sporting matches and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer mood feels, sadly, like no other.

It would be a dramatic understatement to describe the collective temperament after the antisemitic violent assault on Australian Jews during the beachside Hanukah festivities as one of simple ennui.

Across the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tenor of immediate surprise, grief and terror is segueing to fury and bitter division.

Those who had not picked up on the frequently expressed fears of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Similarly, they are attuned to balancing the need for a much more immediate, vigorous official crackdown against antisemitism with the freedom to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a moment for a national listening, it is now, when our faith in mankind is so deeply diminished. This is particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have experienced the hatred and fear of religious and ethnic targeting on this continent or anywhere else.

And yet the social media feeds keep churning out at us the banal hot takes of those with inflammatory, divisive views but no sense at all of that terrifying fragility.

This is a time when I regret not having a stronger faith. I mourn, because believing in people – in our potential for compassion – has failed us so acutely. A different source, something higher, is needed.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have seen such extreme instances of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The selflessness of bystanders. First responders – police officers and medical staff, those who charged into the gunfire to help others, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still waved in the wind all about Bondi, the imperative of social, faith-based and ethnic solidarity was admirably championed by religious figures. It was a message of compassion and tolerance – of bringing together rather than dividing in a time of antisemitic slaughter.

Consistent with the symbolism of Hanukah (illumination amid darkness), there was so much fitting reference of the need for lightness.

Unity, light and love was the essence of faith.

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

And yet segments of the Australian polity responded so disgustingly quickly with division, blame and recrimination.

Some politicians moved straight for the pessimism, using tragedy as a cynical opportunity to question Australia’s migration rules.

Witness the harmful message of division from longstanding agitators of societal discord, capitalizing on the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then read the words of political figures while the probe was still active.

Politics has a formidable task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is mourning and scared and looking for the light and, not least, explanations to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the official terror alert was assessed as probable, did such a significant open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a woefully insufficient protection? Like how could the alleged killers have multiple firearms in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so openly and consistently warned of the danger of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were subjected to that cliched line (or versions of it) that it’s people not weapons that cause death. Of course, each point are true. It’s possible to at the same time seek new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and prevent guns away from its possible perpetrators.

In this metropolis of immense splendor, of clear azure skies above sea and sand, the ocean and the coastline – our shared community spaces – may not seem entirely familiar again to the multitude who’ve noted that iconic Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s horrific bloodshed.

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

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

But this is perhaps counterintuitively against instinct. For in these times of fear, anger, sadness, bewilderment and grief we need each other more than ever.

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

But tragically, all of the portents are that unity in politics and the community will be elusive this long, draining summer.