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While the nation settles into for a traditional Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of coast and blistering heat accompanied by the background of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the nation's summer mood seems, sadly, like no other.

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

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tenor of immediate shock, grief and terror is segueing to fury and deep polarization.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed concerns of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Just as, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, vigorous official crackdown against antisemitism 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 deeply depleted. This is particularly so for those of us lucky never to have experienced the animosity and fear of religious and ethnic persecution on this continent or elsewhere.

And yet the algorithms keep spewing at us the trite instant opinions of those with inflammatory, divisive stances but no sense at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

This is a period when I lament not having a greater faith. I mourn, because believing in humanity – in our potential 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 profound examples of human decency. The heroism of individuals. The bravery of those present. Emergency personnel – police officers and paramedics, those who ran towards the gunfire to aid fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

When the barrier cordon still waved wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of social, religious and ethnic unity was admirably promoted by religious figures. It was a message of compassion and tolerance – of unifying rather than dividing in a time of targeted violence.

In keeping with the meaning of Hanukah (light amid darkness), there was so much appropriate evocation of the need for hope.

Unity, light and love was the essence of belief.

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

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

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

Observe the harmful rhetoric of division from longstanding fomenters of Australian racial division, capitalizing on the massacre before the site was even cold. Then read the words 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 hope and, importantly, answers to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level 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 residence when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and consistently warned of the threat of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were treated to that cliched line (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not guns that cause death. Of course, each point are true. It’s possible to simultaneously seek new ways to stop violent bigotry and keep firearms away from its possible perpetrators.

In this city of immense beauty, of pristine azure skies above ocean and shore, the water and the coastline – our shared community spaces – may not seem quite the same again to the many who’ve noted that famous Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene violence.

We long right now for comprehension and significance, for family, and perhaps for the solace of beauty in culture or nature.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling holiday gathering plans. Quiet contemplation will feel more appropriate.

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

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