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While the nation winds down for a customary Christmas holiday across languorous days of beach and scorching heat accompanied by the soundtrack of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the nation's summer mood feels, unfortunately, like none before.

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

Throughout the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tenor of immediate shock, sorrow and terror is segueing to anger and bitter polarization.

Those who had not picked up on the frequently expressed concerns of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Similarly, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, vigorous government and institutional fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a moment for a national listening, it is now, when our faith in humanity is so sorely depleted. This is particularly so for those of us lucky never to have experienced the animosity and dread of religious and ethnic persecution on this continent or elsewhere.

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

This is a period when I lament not having a greater faith. I mourn, because believing in humanity – in our capacity for compassion – has let us down so acutely. A different source, a greater power, is needed.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme instances of human decency. The heroism of individuals. The bravery of those present. Emergency personnel – police officers and medical staff, those who charged into the danger to aid others, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the necessity of community, religious and cultural solidarity was laudably promoted by faith leaders. It was a call of compassion and tolerance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a time of targeted violence.

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

Unity, light and compassion was the essence of faith.

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

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

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

Observe the harmful rhetoric of division from longstanding fomenters of societal discord, capitalizing on the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the statements of leadership aspirants while the investigation was ongoing.

Government has a daunting task to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is grieving and scared and looking for the light and, not least, answers to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the official terror alert was judged as likely, did such a significant open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly inadequate security presence? Like how could the alleged killers have six guns in the residence when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and consistently alerted of the threat of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were subjected to that cliched argument (or iterations of it) that it’s people not weapons that kill. Naturally, each point are valid. It’s feasible to at the same time seek new ways to stop violent bigotry and keep firearms away from its possible perpetrators.

In this metropolis of profound beauty, of clear azure skies above sea and sand, the ocean and the beaches – our communal areas – may not look quite the same again to the many who’ve observed that famous Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s obscene violence.

We long right now for understanding and meaning, for family, and perhaps for the solace of beauty 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, anger, sadness, bewilderment and loss 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 portents are that cohesion in public life and society will be hard to find this extended, draining summer.