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As the nation winds down for a customary Christmas holiday during languorous days of beach and scorching heat accompanied by the soundtrack of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the nation's summer atmosphere seems, sadly, like no other.

It would be a significant understatement to characterize the national disposition after the antisemitic violent assault on Jewish Australians during the beachside Hanukah festivities as one of mere discontent.

Across the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tone of initial surprise, grief and horror is shifting to anger and bitter polarization.

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced fears of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Just as, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, energetic government and institutional fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to demonstrate against genocide.

If ever there was a moment for a national listening, it is now, when our faith in mankind is so sorely depleted. This is especially so for those of us fortunate enough never to have experienced the animosity and fear of religious and ethnic targeting on this land or elsewhere.

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

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

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have seen such profound examples of human decency. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. First responders – police officers and paramedics, those who charged into the danger 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, religious and cultural unity was admirably promoted by religious figures. It was a call of love and acceptance – of bringing together rather than dividing in a time of targeted violence.

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

Unity, hope and compassion was the essence of faith.

‘Our public places may not look exactly as they did again.’

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

Some elected officials gravitated straight for the darkness, using tragedy as a cynical chance to challenge Australia’s immigration policies.

Witness the harmful message of disunity from longstanding fomenters of societal discord, capitalizing on the attack before the site was even cold. Then read the words of political figures while the investigation was still active.

Politics has a daunting job to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is mourning and frightened and seeking the light and, importantly, answers to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the official terror alert was judged as likely, did such a significant open-air Hanukah event go ahead with such a woefully inadequate security presence? Like how could the alleged killers have six guns in the family home when the security agency has so publicly and consistently alerted of the threat of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were subjected to that cliched argument (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not weapons that kill. Naturally, each point are true. It’s possible to at the same time seek new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and keep guns away from its potential perpetrators.

In this city of profound beauty, of clear blue heavens above sea and shore, the water and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not seem quite the same again to the multitude who’ve noted that famous Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.

We long right now for understanding and significance, for loved ones, and perhaps for the consolation of aesthetics in culture or the natural world.

This weekend many Australians are calling off holiday gathering plans. Quiet contemplation will feel more in order.

But this is perhaps somewhat counterintuitive. For in these times of anxiety, outrage, melancholy, confusion and loss we require each other more than ever.

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

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