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As the nation settles into for a traditional Christmas holiday across slow-moving days of beach and scorching heat accompanied by the background of sporting matches and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer mood feels, unfortunately, like none before.

It would be a dramatic understatement to characterize the collective temperament after the antisemitic terrorist attack on Jewish Australians during Bondi 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 terror is segueing to fury and deep polarization.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed fears of the Jewish community are now highly attuned. Just as, they are attuned to balancing the need for a far more urgent, energetic government and institutional fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a time for a national listening, it is now, when our belief in humanity is so deeply diminished. This is especially so for those of us fortunate enough never to have endured the hatred and fear 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, divisive views but little understanding at all of that terrifying fragility.

This is a time when I regret not having a stronger spiritual belief. I mourn, because believing in humanity – in our capacity for kindness – has let us down so acutely. Something else, a greater power, is required.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such extreme examples of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The selflessness of bystanders. First responders – law enforcement and paramedics, those who charged into the gunfire to aid fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the police tape still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of community, religious and cultural solidarity was admirably promoted by faith leaders. It was a message of love and acceptance – of unifying rather than dividing in a time of antisemitic slaughter.

In keeping with the meaning of Hanukah (light amid gloom), there was so much appropriate reference of the need for hope.

Togetherness, light and love was the message of belief.

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

And yet elements of the Australian polity reacted so nauseatingly swiftly with fragmentation, blame and accusation.

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

Observe the dangerous rhetoric of division from longstanding fomenters of Australian racial division, exploiting the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then read the statements of political figures while the probe was ongoing.

Politics has a formidable job to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is mourning and frightened and looking for the hope and, not least, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as probable, did such a significant open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a woefully insufficient protection? Like how could the alleged killers have six guns in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and repeatedly alerted of the threat of antisemitic violence?

How quickly we were subjected to that tired line (or iterations of it) that it’s individuals not guns that cause death. Naturally, each point are valid. It’s possible to at the same time pursue new ways to prevent violent bigotry and prevent guns away from its possible perpetrators.

In this city of profound beauty, of pristine azure skies above ocean and shore, the water and the coastline – our communal areas – may not seem quite the same again to the many who’ve noted that iconic Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.

We yearn right now for understanding and significance, for loved ones, and perhaps for the consolation of aesthetics in culture or nature.

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

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

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

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