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While the nation settles into for a traditional Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of beach and blistering heat set to the soundtrack of sporting matches and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer atmosphere feels, unfortunately, like none before.

It would be a significant understatement to characterize the collective temperament after the antisemitic violent assault on Australian Jews during Bondi Hanukah celebrations as one of simple ennui.

Across the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of the nation's urban centers – a tenor of immediate surprise, grief and horror is segueing to anger and bitter division.

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced concerns of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, energetic government and institutional crackdown against antisemitism with the right to peacefully protest 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 particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have experienced the hatred and dread of religious and ethnic persecution on this continent or elsewhere.

And yet the algorithms keep spewing at us the trite hot takes of those with blistering, polarizing stances but little understanding at all of that profound fragility.

This is a period when I lament not having a stronger spiritual belief. I mourn, because believing in people – in mankind’s potential for compassion – has let us down so acutely. Something else, something higher, is needed.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have seen such extreme instances of human decency. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. First responders – police officers and paramedics, those who ran towards the danger to help others, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the police tape still waved in the wind all about Bondi, the necessity of social, faith-based and cultural unity was laudably promoted by faith leaders. It was a message of love and acceptance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a time of targeted violence.

Consistent with the symbolism of the Festival of Lights (illumination amid gloom), there was so much appropriate reference of the need for lightness.

Togetherness, light and love was the message of faith.

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

And yet elements of the political landscape reacted so nauseatingly quickly with division, blame and accusation.

Some politicians gravitated straight for the darkness, using tragedy as a calculating chance to question Australia’s immigration policies.

Witness the dangerous message of division from veteran fomenters of societal discord, capitalizing on the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then read the words of leadership aspirants while the probe was ongoing.

Government has a daunting task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is mourning and frightened and looking for the light and, not least, explanations to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as likely, did such a significant public Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly insufficient security presence? Like how could the alleged killers have multiple firearms in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and repeatedly alerted of the danger of antisemitic violence?

How quickly we were treated to that cliched argument (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not guns that cause death. Naturally, both things are valid. It’s feasible to at the same time seek new ways to stop violent bigotry and keep firearms away from its potential perpetrators.

In this metropolis of immense beauty, of clear blue heavens above sea and shore, the water and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not look entirely familiar again to the many who’ve noted that iconic Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s horrific violence.

We long right now for understanding and meaning, for loved ones, and perhaps for the consolation of beauty in art or the natural world.

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

But this is perhaps somewhat against instinct. For in these times of anxiety, anger, melancholy, confusion and grief we need each other more than ever.

The reassurance 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 elusive this long, enervating summer.