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While the nation winds down for a customary Christmas holiday across languorous days of coast and blistering heat accompanied by the background of sporting matches and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer atmosphere seems, unfortunately, like no other.

It would be a dramatic oversimplification to describe the national disposition after the antisemitic terrorist attack on Jewish Australians during Bondi Hanukah festivities as one of mere ennui.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tenor of initial surprise, grief and horror is segueing to fury and deep polarization.

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced fears of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Just as, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, energetic government and institutional fight against antisemitism with the freedom to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a time for a national listening, it is now, when our faith in mankind is so deeply diminished. This is particularly so for those of us lucky never to have endured the animosity and fear of religious and ethnic targeting on this land or anywhere else.

And yet the algorithms keep churning out at us the trite instant opinions of those with inflammatory, polarizing views but no sense at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

This is a period when I regret not having a stronger spiritual belief. I lament, because believing in people – in our capacity for compassion – has let us down so painfully. Something else, a greater power, is required.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such extreme examples of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and medical staff, those who charged into the gunfire to aid fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of social, faith-based and ethnic solidarity was laudably championed by religious figures. It was a call of love and tolerance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a moment of targeted violence.

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

Unity, light and love was the message of belief.

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

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

Some politicians moved straight for the pessimism, using the atrocity as a calculating chance to question Australia’s migration rules.

Witness the harmful rhetoric of division from longstanding fomenters of Australian racial division, capitalizing on the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then read the words of leadership aspirants while the investigation was still active.

Government has a formidable job to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is mourning and frightened and looking for the light and, importantly, explanations to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the official terror alert was assessed as likely, did such a significant open-air Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly insufficient security presence? Like how could the alleged killers have multiple firearms in the residence 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 versions of it) that it’s people not weapons that kill. Of course, both things are true. It’s possible to at the same time pursue new ways to stop violent bigotry and prevent firearms away from its potential actors.

In this city of profound splendor, of pristine blue heavens above sea and shore, the water and the beaches – our communal areas – may not look entirely familiar again to the many who’ve noted that iconic Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s obscene violence.

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

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

But this is perhaps somewhat counterintuitive. For in these times of fear, outrage, sadness, bewilderment and grief we need each other more than ever.

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

But tragically, all of the indicators are that cohesion in public life and the community will be hard to find this extended, draining summer.