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While the nation winds down for a customary Christmas holiday across languorous days of coast and scorching heat accompanied by the soundtrack of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the nation's summer atmosphere feels, sadly, like none before.

It would be a dramatic understatement to characterize the national disposition after the antisemitic terrorist attack on Australian Jews during the beachside Hanukah festivities 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 initial surprise, sorrow and horror is segueing to fury and deep division.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed fears of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a far more urgent, vigorous government and institutional crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to demonstrate against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a time for a national listening, it is now, when our faith in humanity is so sorely diminished. This is especially so for those of us fortunate enough never to have endured 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 inflammatory, polarizing views but no sense at all of that profound fragility.

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

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme instances of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – police officers and medical staff, those who charged into the gunfire to aid fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

When the police tape still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of social, religious and cultural unity was admirably promoted by faith leaders. It was a message of compassion and acceptance – of bringing together rather than splitting apart in a time of antisemitic slaughter.

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

Togetherness, hope and compassion was the essence of belief.

‘Our public places may not look exactly as they did again.’

And yet segments of the political landscape reacted so disgustingly swiftly with division, blame and recrimination.

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

Witness the dangerous message of disunity from longstanding fomenters of Australian racial division, exploiting the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then read the statements of political figures while the investigation was still active.

Government has a daunting task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is mourning and scared and seeking the light and, importantly, explanations to so many questions.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as probable, did such a large open-air Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly insufficient protection? Like how could the accused attackers have multiple firearms in the residence when the security agency has so publicly and repeatedly alerted of the threat of antisemitic violence?

How quickly we were treated to that cliched argument (or iterations of it) that it’s people not guns that kill. Naturally, each point are valid. It’s possible to simultaneously pursue new ways to prevent violent bigotry and prevent firearms away from its possible actors.

In this metropolis of immense beauty, of pristine blue heavens above ocean and sand, the ocean and the coastline – our communal areas – may not seem quite the same again to the many who’ve noted that famous Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s horrific violence.

We long 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 cancelling Christmas party plans. Reflective solitude will feel more appropriate.

But this is perhaps counterintuitively counterintuitive. For in these days of fear, anger, melancholy, confusion and loss we need each other more than ever.

The reassurance of togetherness – the human glue of the unity in the very word – is what we probably need most.

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