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While the nation settles into for a traditional Christmas holiday during languorous days of coast and blistering heat set to the soundtrack of Test cricket and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer mood feels, sadly, like no other.

It would be a significant understatement to characterize the collective disposition after the anti-Jewish violent assault on Jewish Australians during Bondi Hanukah celebrations as one of simple discontent.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tenor of initial shock, sorrow and terror is shifting to fury and bitter division.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced concerns of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Just as, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, energetic official fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to demonstrate against genocide.

If ever there was a moment for a national listening, it is now, when our faith in humanity is so deeply diminished. This is especially so for those of us lucky never to have experienced the animosity and dread of faith-based 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 views but no sense at all of that profound fragility.

This is a time when I lament not having a stronger spiritual belief. I mourn, because having faith in people – in our potential for compassion – has failed us so painfully. Something else, something higher, is required.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme examples of human decency. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and paramedics, those who charged into the danger to help others, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the police tape still fluttered in the wind all about Bondi, the imperative of community, religious and cultural unity was admirably championed by religious figures. It was a call of compassion and acceptance – of bringing together rather than splitting apart in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

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

Togetherness, hope and love was the essence of belief.

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

And yet segments of the Australian polity responded so disgustingly quickly with fragmentation, blame and accusation.

Some politicians gravitated straight for the darkness, using tragedy as a calculating chance to question Australia’s immigration policies.

Witness the dangerous message of disunity from veteran agitators of societal discord, exploiting the massacre before the site was even cold. Then read the words of political figures while the probe was still active.

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

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as probable, did such a significant open-air Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly inadequate security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the family home when the security agency has so publicly and repeatedly warned of the threat of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were subjected to that tired line (or versions of it) that it’s people not weapons that cause death. Of course, both things are valid. It’s possible to simultaneously seek new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and prevent guns away from its potential perpetrators.

In this metropolis of immense beauty, of clear blue heavens above ocean and sand, the water and the beaches – our communal areas – may not seem 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 yearn right now for comprehension and meaning, for loved ones, and perhaps for the solace of beauty in culture or nature.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling holiday gathering plans. Quiet contemplation will feel more in order.

But this is perhaps counterintuitively counterintuitive. For in these times of anxiety, outrage, sadness, confusion and grief we require each other now 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 public life and society will be elusive this extended, enervating summer.