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While the nation winds down for a customary Christmas holiday across languorous days of coast and scorching heat set to the soundtrack of Test cricket and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer mood seems, sadly, like none before.

It would be a dramatic oversimplification to describe the collective disposition after the anti-Jewish violent assault on Jewish Australians during the beachside Hanukah festivities as one of mere ennui.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tone of immediate surprise, grief and terror is segueing to anger and deep polarization.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed concerns of the Jewish community are now highly attuned. Just as, they are attuned to balancing the need for a much more immediate, energetic government and institutional fight against antisemitism with the freedom to peacefully protest against genocide.

If ever there was a time for a national listening, it is now, when our belief in humanity is so sorely diminished. This is especially so for those of us lucky never to have experienced the hatred and fear of religious and ethnic targeting on this land or elsewhere.

And yet the algorithms keep spewing at us the banal instant opinions of those with blistering, divisive stances but no sense at all of that profound vulnerability.

This is a time when I lament not having a greater faith. I mourn, because believing in humanity – in mankind’s capacity for kindness – has let us down so painfully. Something else, something higher, is needed.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme examples of human goodness. The heroism of individuals. The bravery of those present. First responders – police officers and paramedics, those who ran towards the danger to aid fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered in the wind all about Bondi, the necessity of social, faith-based and ethnic unity was admirably promoted by religious figures. It was a call of compassion and tolerance – of bringing together rather than splitting apart in a moment of targeted violence.

Consistent with the meaning of Hanukah (light amid gloom), there was so much fitting reference of the need for lightness.

Unity, light and compassion was the essence of faith.

‘Our shared community spaces may not look quite the same again.’

And yet segments of the Australian polity reacted so disgustingly quickly with division, finger-pointing and recrimination.

Some politicians moved straight for the darkness, using tragedy as a cynical opportunity to question Australia’s migration rules.

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

Government has a daunting job to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is grieving and frightened and looking for the hope and, importantly, explanations to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the official terror alert was judged as likely, did such a large public Hanukah event go ahead with such a woefully insufficient security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the residence when the security agency has so openly and repeatedly warned of the danger of targeted attacks?

How quickly we were subjected to that tired argument (or versions of it) that it’s people not guns that cause death. Naturally, both things are true. It’s possible to at the same time seek new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and keep firearms away from its potential 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 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 meaning, for family, and perhaps for the consolation of aesthetics in art or nature.

This weekend many Australians are calling off Christmas party plans. Reflective solitude will seem more in order.

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

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

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