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As the nation settles into for a traditional Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of coast and blistering heat accompanied by the soundtrack of Test cricket and insect sounds, this year the country’s summer atmosphere seems, unfortunately, like none before.

It would be a dramatic oversimplification to characterize the national disposition after the anti-Jewish violent assault on Australian Jews during Bondi Hanukah celebrations as one of mere ennui.

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

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced fears of the Jewish community are now highly attuned. Just as, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a far more urgent, energetic official 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 faith in humanity is so sorely depleted. This is especially so for those of us lucky never to have endured the hatred and dread of religious and ethnic targeting on this continent or elsewhere.

And yet the algorithms keep churning out at us the trite hot takes of those with blistering, divisive stances but no sense at all of that profound vulnerability.

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

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme instances of human decency. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The selflessness of bystanders. First responders – police officers and medical staff, those who ran towards the danger to help others, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the necessity of social, religious and ethnic solidarity was admirably promoted by religious figures. It was a call of love and tolerance – of bringing together rather than dividing in a time of antisemitic slaughter.

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

Unity, light and compassion was the message of faith.

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

And yet elements of the Australian polity responded so disgustingly quickly with fragmentation, finger-pointing and accusation.

Some elected officials gravitated straight for the darkness, using the atrocity as a cynical opportunity to question Australia’s immigration policies.

Observe the dangerous rhetoric of disunity from longstanding agitators of societal discord, exploiting the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then read the statements of political figures while the investigation was ongoing.

Politics has a formidable task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is mourning and scared and looking for the hope and, not least, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was assessed as likely, did such a large open-air Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly insufficient security presence? Like how could the alleged killers have multiple firearms in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and consistently warned of the threat of targeted attacks?

How quickly we were subjected to that cliched line (or iterations of it) that it’s people not guns that kill. Naturally, each point are valid. It’s possible to at the same time pursue new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and prevent guns away from its possible actors.

In this metropolis of immense splendor, of clear blue heavens above ocean and sand, the ocean and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not seem quite the same again to the multitude who’ve noted that iconic Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s horrific violence.

We yearn right now for comprehension and significance, for loved ones, and perhaps for the solace of aesthetics in culture or the natural world.

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

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

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

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