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While the nation settles into for a customary Christmas holiday during languorous days of beach and blistering heat accompanied by the soundtrack of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the country’s summer atmosphere seems, sadly, like no other.

It would be a dramatic oversimplification to describe the collective disposition after the antisemitic violent assault on Jewish Australians during the beachside Hanukah festivities as one of mere ennui.

Across the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of the nation's urban centers – a tenor of initial surprise, sorrow and terror is shifting to fury and deep division.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed fears of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, energetic official fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a moment for a national listening, it is now, when our belief in mankind is so sorely diminished. This is especially so for those of us lucky never to have experienced the hatred and dread of religious and ethnic persecution on this land or anywhere else.

And yet the social media feeds keep spewing at us the banal instant opinions of those with blistering, divisive stances but no sense at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

This is a time when I lament not having a greater faith. I lament, because having faith in humanity – in our potential for compassion – has failed us so painfully. Something else, a greater power, is needed.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme instances of human goodness. The heroism of individuals. The bravery of those present. First responders – law enforcement and medical staff, those who ran towards the gunfire to help others, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered 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 bringing together rather than dividing in a moment of targeted violence.

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

Unity, hope and compassion was the essence of faith.

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

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

Some elected officials moved straight for the pessimism, using tragedy as a cynical chance to challenge Australia’s migration rules.

Witness the harmful rhetoric of disunity from longstanding agitators of societal discord, capitalizing on the massacre before the site was even cold. Then consider the statements of political figures while the probe was ongoing.

Politics has a daunting task to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is grieving and scared and looking for the hope and, importantly, explanations to so many questions.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as likely, did such a large public Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a woefully insufficient protection? Like how could the alleged killers have six guns in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so openly and repeatedly alerted of the threat of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were treated to that cliched line (or iterations of it) that it’s individuals not guns that kill. Naturally, each point are valid. It’s possible to simultaneously pursue new ways to stop violent bigotry and prevent firearms away from its possible perpetrators.

In this city of profound beauty, of clear azure skies above ocean and shore, the water and the coastline – our shared community spaces – may not look entirely familiar again to the many who’ve noted that famous Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.

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

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

But this is perhaps somewhat against instinct. For in these days of fear, anger, melancholy, bewilderment and loss we need each other more than ever.

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

But sadly, all of the portents are that cohesion in public life and society will be elusive this long, enervating summer.