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As the nation settles into for a customary Christmas holiday during languorous days of coast and scorching heat set to the soundtrack of sporting matches and insect sounds, this year the country’s summer mood seems, unfortunately, like none before.

It would be a dramatic oversimplification to characterize the national temperament after the anti-Jewish terrorist attack on Australian Jews during Bondi Hanukah festivities as one of simple discontent.

Throughout the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tenor of immediate shock, grief and terror is segueing to fury and bitter polarization.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced concerns of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Just as, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a much more immediate, energetic official crackdown against antisemitism with the right to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a moment for a national listening, it is now, when our belief in mankind is so deeply depleted. This is particularly so for those of us lucky never to have endured the animosity and fear of religious and ethnic targeting on this land or elsewhere.

And yet the social media feeds keep spewing at us the trite hot takes of those with blistering, divisive views but little understanding at all of that profound vulnerability.

This is a time when I lament not having a greater spiritual belief. I lament, because believing in humanity – in mankind’s capacity for compassion – has let us down so acutely. Something else, something higher, is required.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme instances of human decency. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. First responders – police officers and medical staff, those who charged into the danger to aid fellow humans, some publicly hailed but for the most part unnamed and unheralded.

When the barrier cordon still waved wildly all about Bondi, the necessity of social, religious and cultural unity was laudably promoted by faith leaders. It was a call of compassion and acceptance – of bringing together rather than dividing in a time of antisemitic slaughter.

In keeping with the meaning of the Festival of Lights (light amid darkness), there was so much appropriate reference of the need for hope.

Unity, hope and compassion was the message of faith.

‘Our shared community spaces may not look exactly as they did again.’

And yet elements of the political landscape responded so disgustingly swiftly with division, blame and accusation.

Some elected officials moved straight for the pessimism, using the atrocity as a cynical chance to challenge Australia’s migration rules.

Observe the dangerous message of division from longstanding fomenters of Australian racial division, capitalizing on the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the statements of political figures while the probe was still active.

Politics has a formidable job to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is grieving and frightened and seeking the hope and, importantly, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was assessed as likely, did such a significant open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly inadequate security presence? Like how could the alleged killers have multiple firearms in the family home when the security agency has so openly and repeatedly warned of the threat of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were subjected to that cliched line (or iterations of it) that it’s people not weapons that kill. Of course, each point are true. It’s possible to at the same time pursue new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and keep firearms away from its potential perpetrators.

In this city of immense splendor, of pristine blue heavens above sea and sand, the water and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not seem quite the same again to the multitude who’ve observed that famous Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene violence.

We long right now for comprehension and significance, for loved ones, and perhaps for the solace of aesthetics in culture or the natural world.

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

But this is perhaps counterintuitively counterintuitive. For in these times of fear, outrage, melancholy, bewilderment and loss we need each other now more than ever.

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

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