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While Australia winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday across languorous days of coast and scorching heat set to the soundtrack of sporting matches and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer atmosphere feels, sadly, like no other.

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

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

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed concerns of the Jewish community are now highly attuned. Similarly, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a far more urgent, energetic official crackdown against antisemitism with the right to demonstrate against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a time for a national listening, it is now, when our belief in humanity is so sorely depleted. This is especially so for those of us fortunate enough never to have endured the animosity and fear of religious and ethnic persecution on this land or anywhere else.

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 fragility.

This is a period when I lament not having a stronger faith. I lament, because believing in humanity – in our capacity for kindness – has let us down so painfully. A different source, a greater power, is required.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have seen such extreme examples of human decency. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The selflessness of bystanders. First responders – law enforcement and paramedics, those who ran towards the danger to help fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of social, faith-based and cultural unity was admirably championed by religious figures. It was a call of love and tolerance – of bringing together rather than splitting apart in a moment of targeted violence.

In keeping with the symbolism of Hanukah (light amid darkness), there was so much fitting evocation of the need for lightness.

Unity, 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 fragmentation, blame and accusation.

Some politicians moved straight for the darkness, using the atrocity as a calculating chance to challenge Australia’s migration rules.

Observe the dangerous message of disunity from veteran agitators of societal discord, exploiting the massacre before the site was even cold. Then consider the words of political figures while the probe was still active.

Government has a daunting task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is mourning and scared and looking for the light and, not least, answers 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 woefully inadequate protection? Like how could the alleged killers have multiple firearms in the residence when the security agency has so publicly and consistently warned of the threat of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were treated to that tired line (or iterations of it) that it’s people not guns that kill. Of course, each point are true. It’s feasible to simultaneously pursue new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and prevent firearms away from its possible perpetrators.

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

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

This weekend many Australians are cancelling Christmas party plans. Reflective solitude will seem more appropriate.

But this is perhaps counterintuitively against instinct. For in these times of anxiety, outrage, melancholy, bewilderment and grief we need each other now more than ever.

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

But sadly, all of the indicators are that unity in public life and the community will be hard to find this extended, draining summer.