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While the nation winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday during languorous days of coast and scorching heat set to the background of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the country’s summer mood feels, sadly, like no other.

It would be a dramatic oversimplification to describe the national temperament after the anti-Jewish terrorist attack on Jewish Australians during the beachside Hanukah celebrations 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 tone of immediate shock, sorrow and horror is segueing to fury and bitter polarization.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced concerns of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are attuned to balancing the need for a much more immediate, vigorous official fight against antisemitism with the freedom to peacefully protest against genocide.

If ever there was a moment for a national listening, it is now, when our belief in humanity is so deeply depleted. This is especially so for those of us lucky never to have endured the animosity and fear of faith-based targeting on this continent or anywhere else.

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

This is a time when I lament not having a stronger faith. I mourn, because believing in humanity – in our capacity for compassion – has let us down so acutely. A different source, something higher, is required.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have witnessed such profound instances 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 fellow humans, 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, faith-based and cultural unity was admirably promoted by faith leaders. It was a call of love and tolerance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a time of antisemitic slaughter.

Consistent with the symbolism of the Festival of Lights (light amid gloom), there was so much appropriate evocation of the need for hope.

Togetherness, light and compassion 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 nauseatingly quickly with division, finger-pointing and accusation.

Some politicians gravitated straight for the darkness, using the atrocity as a calculating opportunity to question Australia’s migration rules.

Observe the harmful rhetoric of division from veteran agitators of Australian racial division, exploiting the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the statements of leadership aspirants while the probe was still active.

Politics has a daunting task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is grieving and frightened and looking for the hope and, not least, explanations to so many questions.

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 protection? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the residence when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and repeatedly alerted of the danger of targeted attacks?

How quickly we were subjected to that cliched line (or iterations of it) that it’s individuals not weapons that cause death. Of course, both things are valid. It’s feasible to at the same time pursue new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and prevent guns away from its potential actors.

In this city of profound beauty, of pristine azure skies above sea and shore, the water and the beaches – our communal areas – may not seem entirely familiar again to the multitude who’ve observed that famous Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s horrific violence.

We yearn right now for comprehension and significance, for family, and perhaps for the consolation of aesthetics in art or nature.

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

But this is perhaps somewhat against instinct. For in these times of fear, outrage, melancholy, confusion and grief we require each other now more than ever.

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

But sadly, all of the indicators are that cohesion in politics and society will be elusive this extended, draining summer.