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As the nation settles into for a traditional Christmas holiday during languorous days of beach and scorching heat accompanied by the background of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the nation's summer mood feels, sadly, like none before.

It would be a significant oversimplification to describe the collective temperament after the antisemitic terrorist attack on Jewish Australians during the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of mere ennui.

Across the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tenor of immediate shock, sorrow and horror is shifting to anger and deep polarization.

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

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

And yet the algorithms keep spewing at us the banal hot takes of those with inflammatory, divisive views but no sense at all of that profound fragility.

This is a time when I lament not having a greater spiritual belief. I mourn, because believing in people – in our potential for compassion – has let us down so painfully. Something else, a greater power, is required.

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

When the barrier cordon still waved wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of community, faith-based and ethnic unity was admirably promoted by faith leaders. It was a call of compassion and acceptance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a moment of targeted violence.

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

Unity, hope and love was the essence of belief.

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

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

Some politicians gravitated straight for the darkness, using tragedy as a calculating opportunity to challenge Australia’s immigration policies.

Observe the dangerous rhetoric of division from veteran fomenters of Australian racial division, capitalizing on 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 mourning and frightened and seeking the light and, importantly, explanations to so many questions.

Like why, when the official terror alert was judged as likely, did such a large open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a woefully inadequate security presence? Like how could the alleged killers have six guns in the family home when the security agency has so openly and repeatedly warned of the threat of antisemitic violence?

How quickly we were subjected to that tired line (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not guns that kill. Naturally, each point are true. It’s feasible to at the same time pursue new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and keep firearms away from its potential perpetrators.

In this city of profound beauty, of pristine blue heavens above ocean and shore, the water and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not look entirely familiar again to the multitude who’ve observed that famous Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.

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

This weekend many Australians are calling off holiday gathering plans. Reflective solitude will feel more appropriate.

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

The reassurance of community – the binding force of the unity in the very word – is what we likely need most.

But tragically, all of the indicators are that cohesion in politics and the community will be elusive this extended, enervating summer.