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As the nation winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday during languorous days of beach and scorching heat accompanied by the background of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the country’s summer atmosphere feels, sadly, like none before.

It would be a significant understatement to describe the national temperament 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 postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tone of initial shock, grief and horror is segueing to anger and bitter polarization.

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced concerns of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, energetic government and institutional crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a time for a national listening, it is now, when our belief in humanity is so deeply depleted. This is particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have experienced the animosity and fear of faith-based targeting on this land or anywhere else.

And yet the social media feeds keep churning out at us the banal instant opinions of those with blistering, polarizing views but no sense at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

This is a period when I regret not having a greater faith. I lament, because believing in humanity – in our capacity for compassion – has failed us so acutely. Something else, something higher, is required.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have seen such profound instances of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and paramedics, those who charged into the gunfire to help others, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

When the police tape still fluttered in the wind all about Bondi, the imperative of community, faith-based and ethnic solidarity was admirably promoted by faith leaders. It was a message of love and acceptance – of bringing together rather than splitting apart in a moment of targeted violence.

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

Togetherness, hope and love was the essence of faith.

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

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

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

Witness the dangerous rhetoric of disunity from veteran agitators of Australian racial division, exploiting the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the words of political figures while the investigation was ongoing.

Government has a daunting task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is grieving and frightened and seeking the light and, not least, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the official terror alert was judged as likely, did such a significant open-air Hanukah event go ahead with such a woefully insufficient security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and consistently alerted of the danger of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were subjected to that cliched line (or iterations of it) that it’s people not weapons that cause death. Naturally, each point are valid. It’s feasible to at the same time pursue new ways to prevent violent bigotry and prevent firearms away from its potential perpetrators.

In this metropolis of immense splendor, of pristine blue heavens above sea and shore, the ocean and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not seem entirely familiar again to the multitude who’ve noted 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 consolation of aesthetics in art or nature.

This weekend many Australians are calling off holiday gathering plans. Quiet contemplation will feel more appropriate.

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

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

But tragically, all of the portents are that cohesion in public life and society will be elusive this long, enervating summer.