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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 insect sounds, this year the nation's summer atmosphere feels, unfortunately, like none before.

It would be a significant understatement to describe the collective disposition after the antisemitic terrorist attack on Jewish Australians during Bondi Hanukah festivities as one of simple discontent.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tenor of initial surprise, sorrow and horror is shifting to anger and deep division.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed concerns of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Just as, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, energetic government and institutional fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to demonstrate against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a moment for a national listening, it is now, when our belief in mankind is so sorely depleted. This is especially so for those of us lucky never to have experienced the hatred and dread of faith-based persecution on this land or elsewhere.

And yet the social media feeds keep churning out at us the banal instant opinions of those with inflammatory, polarizing stances but little understanding at all of that terrifying fragility.

This is a time when I regret not having a stronger faith. I mourn, because believing in people – in our capacity for compassion – has failed us so acutely. Something else, something higher, is needed.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme examples of human decency. The heroism of individuals. The bravery of those present. Emergency personnel – police officers and medical staff, those who charged into the gunfire to aid others, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

When the police tape still fluttered in the wind all about Bondi, the imperative of social, faith-based and ethnic solidarity was laudably championed by faith leaders. It was a message of compassion and acceptance – of unifying rather than dividing in a time of antisemitic slaughter.

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

Unity, hope and compassion was the essence of faith.

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

And yet segments of the political landscape reacted so disgustingly quickly with fragmentation, blame and accusation.

Some politicians gravitated straight for the darkness, using the atrocity as a cynical opportunity to question Australia’s migration rules.

Witness the dangerous message of division from veteran fomenters of Australian racial division, exploiting the massacre before the site was even cold. Then consider the words of political figures while the probe was still active.

Government has a daunting job to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is mourning and scared and looking for the hope and, importantly, answers to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was assessed as probable, did such a significant public Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a woefully insufficient protection? Like how could the alleged killers have multiple firearms in the family home when the security agency has so publicly and repeatedly warned of the danger of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were subjected to that tired line (or versions of it) that it’s people not weapons that kill. Of course, both things are true. It’s possible to simultaneously pursue new ways to prevent violent bigotry and keep guns away from its potential perpetrators.

In this metropolis of profound splendor, of pristine azure skies above ocean and sand, the water and the beaches – our communal areas – may not look quite the same again to the multitude who’ve observed that iconic Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s horrific bloodshed.

We yearn right now for understanding and meaning, for family, and perhaps for the consolation of beauty in art or nature.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling Christmas party plans. Quiet contemplation will seem more appropriate.

But this is perhaps counterintuitively against instinct. For in these days of anxiety, anger, sadness, confusion and grief we need each other now more than ever.

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

But sadly, all of the indicators are that unity in politics and society will be hard to find this long, enervating summer.