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As the nation winds down for a customary Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of coast and blistering heat accompanied by the background of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the nation's summer atmosphere feels, unfortunately, like no other.

It would be a dramatic understatement to characterize the national temperament after the antisemitic terrorist attack on Australian Jews during the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of simple discontent.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of the nation's urban centers – a tenor of immediate shock, grief and terror 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. Just as, they are attuned to balancing the need for a far more urgent, energetic government and institutional crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a time for a national listening, it is now, when our belief in mankind is so sorely depleted. This is particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have experienced the hatred and dread 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 inflammatory, divisive stances but little understanding at all of that profound vulnerability.

This is a time when I regret not having a greater faith. I lament, because believing in humanity – in mankind’s capacity for compassion – has let us down so painfully. A different source, a greater power, is needed.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme instances of human decency. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. Emergency personnel – police officers and paramedics, those who ran towards the gunfire to aid fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

When the barrier cordon still waved wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of social, religious and ethnic unity was admirably promoted by faith leaders. It was a message of compassion and tolerance – of unifying rather than dividing in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

In keeping with the meaning of Hanukah (light amid gloom), there was so much fitting reference of the need for lightness.

Unity, light and compassion was the message of belief.

‘Our shared community spaces 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 pessimism, using tragedy as a calculating chance to challenge Australia’s immigration policies.

Observe the dangerous rhetoric of disunity from longstanding agitators of societal discord, capitalizing on the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then read the words of leadership aspirants while the probe was still active.

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

Like why, when the official terror alert was assessed as likely, did such a large open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a woefully inadequate security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have multiple firearms in the family home when the security agency has so publicly and consistently warned of the threat of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were subjected to that tired argument (or versions of it) that it’s people not guns that kill. Naturally, each point are true. It’s possible to simultaneously seek new ways to prevent violent bigotry and keep guns away from its possible actors.

In this metropolis of immense beauty, of clear blue heavens above sea and sand, the ocean and the beaches – 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 violence.

We long right now for comprehension and meaning, for family, and perhaps for the solace of aesthetics in culture or the natural world.

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

But this is perhaps somewhat counterintuitive. For in these days of anxiety, anger, sadness, bewilderment and loss we require each other now more than ever.

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

But sadly, all of the portents are that unity in public life and the community will be hard to find this extended, draining summer.