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As the nation settles into for a traditional Christmas holiday during languorous days of coast and scorching heat accompanied by the background of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the nation's summer atmosphere feels, unfortunately, like none before.

It would be a dramatic understatement to characterize the national temperament after the anti-Jewish violent assault on Jewish Australians during Bondi Hanukah festivities as one of simple discontent.

Across the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tenor of initial shock, grief and terror is shifting to anger and bitter division.

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced fears of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Just as, they are attuned to balancing the need for a far more urgent, energetic government and institutional fight 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 mankind is so sorely diminished. This is particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have endured the animosity and fear of faith-based persecution on this land or anywhere else.

And yet the algorithms keep spewing at us the trite hot takes of those with blistering, polarizing views but little understanding at all of that terrifying fragility.

This is a period when I regret not having a greater spiritual belief. I lament, because believing in humanity – in mankind’s capacity for compassion – has failed us so painfully. A different source, something higher, is required.

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. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and medical staff, those who charged into the danger to aid fellow humans, some publicly hailed but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered in the wind all about Bondi, the necessity of community, religious and cultural unity was laudably championed by religious figures. It was a call of love and acceptance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a time of antisemitic slaughter.

Consistent with the meaning of the Festival of Lights (illumination amid darkness), there was so much fitting reference of the need for lightness.

Togetherness, light and compassion was the message of belief.

‘Our public places may not look quite the same again.’

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

Some elected officials moved straight for the darkness, using tragedy as a calculating chance to question Australia’s migration rules.

Witness the harmful rhetoric of disunity from veteran fomenters of societal discord, capitalizing on the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then read the words of political figures while the investigation was ongoing.

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

Like why, when the official terror alert was assessed as likely, did such a significant open-air Hanukah event go ahead with such a woefully inadequate protection? Like how could the alleged killers have six guns in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so openly and consistently alerted of the danger of targeted attacks?

How quickly we were treated to that tired line (or iterations of it) that it’s individuals not guns that kill. Naturally, each point are valid. It’s feasible to at the same time seek new ways to stop violent bigotry and keep guns away from its potential perpetrators.

In this metropolis of profound splendor, of pristine azure skies above ocean and sand, the ocean and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not look entirely familiar again to the many who’ve observed that famous Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s horrific violence.

We yearn right now for understanding and meaning, for loved ones, and perhaps for the solace of aesthetics in art or the natural world.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling holiday gathering plans. Reflective solitude will feel more in order.

But this is perhaps somewhat against instinct. For in these days of anxiety, outrage, melancholy, confusion and loss we require 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 tragically, all of the indicators are that cohesion in public life and society will be elusive this long, enervating summer.