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While the nation winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of coast and blistering heat accompanied by the soundtrack of sporting matches and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer atmosphere feels, sadly, like no other.

It would be a significant oversimplification to characterize the collective disposition after the antisemitic violent assault on Australian Jews during Bondi Hanukah celebrations as one of simple discontent.

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

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced concerns of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a far more urgent, energetic government and institutional crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to demonstrate against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a moment for a national listening, it is now, when our faith in mankind is so deeply depleted. This is particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have experienced the hatred and dread of faith-based targeting on this continent or anywhere else.

And yet the social media feeds keep spewing at us the banal instant opinions of those with blistering, divisive stances but little understanding at all of that profound vulnerability.

This is a period when I lament not having a stronger faith. I mourn, because having faith in people – in mankind’s potential for compassion – has failed us so acutely. A different source, a greater power, is required.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have seen such profound instances of human decency. The heroism of individuals. The bravery of those present. First responders – police officers and paramedics, those who charged into the gunfire to aid others, some publicly hailed but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still waved wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of social, faith-based and ethnic solidarity was admirably championed 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 meaning of the Festival of Lights (illumination amid darkness), there was so much fitting reference of the need for hope.

Togetherness, light and love was the essence of faith.

‘Our public places may not look exactly as they did again.’

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

Some politicians moved straight for the darkness, using tragedy as a cynical opportunity to challenge Australia’s migration rules.

Observe the harmful rhetoric of division from veteran fomenters of Australian racial division, capitalizing on the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the statements of political figures while the probe was ongoing.

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

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as probable, did such a large open-air Hanukah event 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 consistently warned of the threat of antisemitic violence?

How quickly we were subjected to that tired argument (or versions of it) that it’s people not weapons that kill. Naturally, each point are valid. It’s possible to at the same time seek new ways to stop violent bigotry and keep guns away from its potential actors.

In this metropolis of immense splendor, of clear blue heavens above sea and sand, the water and the coastline – our communal areas – may not look entirely familiar again to the many who’ve noted that iconic 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 aesthetics in art or nature.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling Christmas party plans. Reflective solitude will seem more appropriate.

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

The reassurance 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 society will be elusive this long, draining summer.