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While the nation winds down for a customary Christmas holiday during languorous days of coast and scorching heat accompanied by the soundtrack of Test cricket and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer atmosphere 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 the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of simple ennui.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tone of immediate shock, sorrow and terror is segueing to fury and bitter polarization.

Those who had not picked up on the frequently expressed fears of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Just as, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a far more urgent, vigorous government and institutional fight against antisemitism with the freedom to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a moment for a national listening, it is now, when our belief in humanity is so deeply diminished. This is especially so for those of us fortunate enough never to have experienced the hatred and fear of religious and ethnic persecution on this land or anywhere else.

And yet the algorithms keep spewing at us the trite hot takes of those with inflammatory, polarizing stances but no sense at all of that profound fragility.

This is a period when I lament not having a stronger faith. I lament, because having faith in humanity – in mankind’s capacity for kindness – has failed us so acutely. A different source, a greater power, is required.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such extreme instances of human decency. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. First responders – law enforcement and medical staff, those who charged into the gunfire to help fellow humans, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

When the police tape still waved in the wind all about Bondi, the necessity of social, faith-based and cultural solidarity was laudably championed by religious figures. It was a call of love and acceptance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a time of targeted violence.

Consistent with the symbolism of Hanukah (light amid darkness), there was so much fitting reference of the need for lightness.

Togetherness, light and love was the essence of faith.

‘Our shared community spaces may not look quite the same again.’

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

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

Witness the dangerous rhetoric of division from longstanding agitators of Australian racial division, exploiting the massacre before the site was even cold. Then read the statements of leadership aspirants while the investigation was still active.

Government has a formidable task to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is grieving and scared and seeking the light and, importantly, answers to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the official terror alert was assessed as probable, did such a large open-air Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly inadequate protection? Like how could the alleged killers have six guns in the residence when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and repeatedly alerted of the danger of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were treated to that cliched argument (or iterations of it) that it’s people not weapons that cause death. Of course, each point are valid. It’s possible to simultaneously seek new ways to stop violent bigotry and keep guns away from its possible actors.

In this city of immense splendor, of pristine blue heavens above ocean and sand, the ocean and the coastline – our communal areas – may not seem entirely familiar again to the many who’ve noted that iconic Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.

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

This weekend many Australians are cancelling holiday gathering plans. Reflective solitude will feel more in order.

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

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

But tragically, all of the indicators are that unity in politics and society will be elusive this long, enervating summer.