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While the nation winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday across languorous days of beach and blistering heat set to the background of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the country’s summer mood seems, unfortunately, like no other.

It would be a significant oversimplification to characterize the collective temperament after the antisemitic violent assault on Jewish Australians during Bondi Hanukah celebrations as one of simple ennui.

Across the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tenor of immediate surprise, sorrow and horror is shifting to anger and deep polarization.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced fears of the Jewish community are now highly attuned. Just as, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, vigorous government and institutional fight against antisemitism with the right to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a time for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our faith in humanity is so sorely depleted. This is especially so for those of us fortunate enough never to have endured the animosity and fear of religious and ethnic targeting on this continent or elsewhere.

And yet the social media feeds keep churning out at us the banal hot takes of those with inflammatory, polarizing views but no sense at all of that profound fragility.

This is a period when I lament not having a greater faith. I lament, because believing in people – in mankind’s potential for compassion – has let us down so painfully. A different source, a greater power, is required.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have witnessed such profound instances of human goodness. The heroism of individuals. The bravery of those present. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and paramedics, those who ran towards the gunfire to help fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

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

Consistent with the symbolism of the Festival of Lights (illumination amid gloom), there was so much appropriate reference of the need for lightness.

Unity, light and love was the essence of faith.

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

And yet elements of the Australian polity responded so disgustingly swiftly with division, blame and recrimination.

Some politicians gravitated straight for the pessimism, using the atrocity as a calculating opportunity to challenge Australia’s migration rules.

Observe the dangerous message of disunity from longstanding fomenters of societal discord, capitalizing on the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then read the statements of political figures while the investigation was ongoing.

Politics has a daunting job to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is grieving and scared and looking for the light and, not least, explanations to so many questions.

Like why, when the official terror alert was assessed as likely, did such a large public Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly inadequate protection? Like how could the alleged killers have six guns in the family home when the security agency has so openly and repeatedly warned of the danger of targeted attacks?

How quickly we were treated to that cliched line (or iterations of it) that it’s individuals not guns that cause death. Of course, both things are true. It’s possible to at the same time pursue new ways to stop violent bigotry and prevent firearms away from its potential perpetrators.

In this metropolis of immense splendor, of clear blue heavens above ocean and shore, the ocean and the beaches – our communal areas – may not seem quite the same again to the many who’ve noted that famous Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s horrific bloodshed.

We long right now for understanding and meaning, for family, and perhaps for the solace of aesthetics in culture or the natural world.

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

But this is perhaps somewhat counterintuitive. For in these times of fear, outrage, sadness, confusion and grief we require each other now more than ever.

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

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