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

It would be a significant oversimplification to characterize the national temperament after the anti-Jewish violent assault 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 iconically beautiful of the nation's urban centers – a tone of immediate shock, sorrow and terror is segueing to anger and deep division.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed concerns of the Jewish community are now highly attuned. Just as, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a far more urgent, energetic official crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to demonstrate against genocide.

If ever there was a time 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 endured the hatred and dread of religious and ethnic persecution on this land or elsewhere.

And yet the social media feeds keep spewing at us the banal instant opinions of those with blistering, divisive stances but little understanding at all of that profound fragility.

This is a period when I lament not having a greater faith. I lament, because having faith in people – 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 seen such profound examples of human decency. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – police officers and paramedics, those who ran towards the gunfire to aid others, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unheralded.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered in the wind all about Bondi, the imperative of social, faith-based and ethnic solidarity was laudably championed by religious figures. It was a message of compassion and acceptance – of unifying rather than dividing in a time of antisemitic slaughter.

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

Togetherness, hope and love was the essence of belief.

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

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

Some elected officials moved straight for the pessimism, using tragedy as a calculating opportunity to challenge Australia’s immigration policies.

Witness the dangerous rhetoric of disunity from veteran agitators of societal discord, capitalizing on the attack before the site was even cold. Then read the words of political figures while the probe was ongoing.

Politics has a daunting job to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is mourning and frightened and looking for the hope and, importantly, explanations to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as likely, did such a significant open-air Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly insufficient security presence? Like how could the alleged killers have six guns in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so openly and repeatedly alerted of the danger of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were treated to that tired line (or versions of it) that it’s people not guns that cause death. Naturally, each point are true. It’s possible to at the same time seek new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and prevent guns away from its potential actors.

In this city of immense splendor, of pristine blue heavens above sea and shore, the ocean and the coastline – our shared community spaces – may not look entirely familiar again to the multitude who’ve observed that famous Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.

We long right now for comprehension and meaning, for family, and perhaps for the consolation of aesthetics in culture or nature.

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

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

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

But tragically, all of the portents are that cohesion in politics and society will be hard to find this long, enervating summer.