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As the nation settles into for a customary Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of coast and blistering heat accompanied by the soundtrack of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the nation's summer mood feels, unfortunately, like none before.

It would be a dramatic understatement to describe the national disposition after the antisemitic violent assault on Jewish Australians during Bondi Hanukah celebrations as one of simple discontent.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tenor of immediate shock, sorrow and horror is segueing to anger and deep polarization.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed fears of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Similarly, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a far more urgent, vigorous official crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to peacefully protest against genocide.

If ever there was a time for a national listening, it is now, when our faith in humanity is so sorely diminished. This is particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have endured the hatred and fear of religious and ethnic targeting on this continent or anywhere else.

And yet the algorithms keep churning out at us the banal hot takes of those with blistering, polarizing stances but little understanding at all of that terrifying fragility.

This is a period when I lament not having a stronger spiritual belief. I lament, because having faith in humanity – in our potential for compassion – has failed us so painfully. Something else, a greater power, is needed.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme examples of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and paramedics, those who ran towards the danger to aid others, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the police tape still fluttered in the wind all about Bondi, the necessity of community, faith-based and ethnic solidarity was laudably promoted by religious figures. It was a call of compassion and tolerance – of unifying rather than dividing in a moment of targeted violence.

Consistent with the meaning of the Festival of Lights (illumination amid gloom), there was so much fitting evocation of the need for hope.

Togetherness, light and love was the message of faith.

‘Our public places may not appear quite the same again.’

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

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

Observe the harmful rhetoric of disunity from veteran fomenters of Australian racial division, exploiting the attack before the site was even cold. Then consider the statements of political figures while the investigation 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, not least, explanations to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as probable, did such a large open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly insufficient protection? Like how could the alleged killers have multiple firearms in the residence when the domestic intelligence organisation has so openly and consistently alerted of the threat of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were subjected to that cliched argument (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not guns that kill. Naturally, both things are true. It’s feasible to at the same time pursue new ways to prevent violent bigotry and prevent guns away from its possible perpetrators.

In this metropolis of immense beauty, of clear blue heavens above sea and sand, the ocean and the coastline – our communal areas – may not seem entirely familiar again to the many who’ve observed that iconic Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s horrific bloodshed.

We long right now for understanding and meaning, for loved ones, and perhaps for the consolation of aesthetics in culture or the natural world.

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

But this is perhaps counterintuitively against instinct. For in these days of anxiety, anger, melancholy, bewilderment and loss we need each other more than ever.

The comfort 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, draining summer.