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As the nation settles into for a customary Christmas holiday across languorous days of coast and blistering heat set to the background of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the nation's summer mood feels, unfortunately, like none before.

It would be a dramatic oversimplification to characterize the collective temperament after the anti-Jewish terrorist attack on Australian Jews during the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of simple ennui.

Across the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tone of initial shock, grief and horror is segueing to fury and deep division.

Those who had not picked up on the frequently expressed concerns of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Just as, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, energetic official crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to peacefully protest against genocide.

If ever there was a moment for a national listening, it is now, when our belief in mankind is so sorely diminished. This is particularly so for those of us lucky never to have experienced the animosity and dread of religious and ethnic targeting on this land or anywhere else.

And yet the algorithms keep spewing at us the banal hot takes of those with blistering, polarizing stances but no sense at all of that terrifying fragility.

This is a time when I regret not having a stronger spiritual belief. I mourn, 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 horror of Bondi we have seen such profound instances of human decency. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and medical staff, those who charged into the danger to help fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

When the barrier cordon still waved in the wind all about Bondi, the imperative of social, faith-based and cultural unity was admirably promoted by faith leaders. It was a call of compassion and tolerance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a time of targeted violence.

In keeping with the meaning of Hanukah (light amid darkness), there was so much appropriate reference of the need for hope.

Togetherness, light and love was the essence of belief.

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

And yet segments of the political landscape reacted so disgustingly swiftly with division, blame and recrimination.

Some elected officials gravitated straight for the pessimism, using tragedy as a calculating opportunity to question Australia’s immigration policies.

Witness the harmful rhetoric of division from longstanding agitators of societal discord, exploiting the attack before the site was even cold. Then read the words of political figures while the investigation was still active.

Politics has a daunting job to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is mourning and frightened and looking for the hope and, importantly, answers to so many questions.

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

How rapidly we were subjected to that cliched line (or iterations of it) that it’s individuals not guns that kill. Of course, each point are true. It’s possible to at the same time pursue new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and keep guns away from its possible actors.

In this metropolis of profound beauty, of pristine blue heavens above sea and sand, the ocean and the coastline – our shared community spaces – may not look quite the same again to the multitude who’ve noted that iconic Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s obscene violence.

We yearn right now for comprehension and significance, for loved ones, and perhaps for the solace of beauty in art or nature.

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, outrage, sadness, confusion and grief we need 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 portents are that unity in public life and the community will be elusive this extended, draining summer.