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As the nation winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday across slow-moving days of beach and scorching heat set to the background of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the nation's summer mood seems, sadly, like none before.

It would be a significant understatement to describe the national disposition after the anti-Jewish violent assault on Australian Jews during the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of mere ennui.

Throughout the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tone of immediate surprise, sorrow and terror is segueing to anger and bitter polarization.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed fears of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Just as, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, vigorous official crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a time for a national listening, it is now, when our belief in mankind is so deeply diminished. This is particularly so for those of us lucky never to have endured the hatred and fear of religious and ethnic targeting on this continent or elsewhere.

And yet the algorithms keep spewing at us the banal instant opinions of those with blistering, divisive stances but no sense at all of that profound fragility.

This is a period when I lament not having a stronger spiritual belief. I mourn, because having faith in people – in mankind’s potential for compassion – has failed us so painfully. Something else, a greater power, is needed.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such extreme examples of human goodness. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and medical staff, those who charged into the danger to aid others, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

When the police tape still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of social, faith-based and cultural solidarity was laudably championed by faith leaders. It was a call of compassion and acceptance – of unifying rather than dividing in a moment of targeted violence.

In keeping with the symbolism of Hanukah (illumination amid gloom), there was so much appropriate reference of the need for hope.

Unity, light and compassion was the message of faith.

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

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

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

Witness the harmful message of division from veteran agitators of societal discord, capitalizing on the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the statements of political figures while the investigation was ongoing.

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

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was assessed as likely, did such a significant public Hanukah event go ahead with such a woefully insufficient protection? Like how could the alleged killers have multiple firearms in the residence when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and repeatedly warned of the threat of antisemitic violence?

How quickly we were subjected to that tired argument (or iterations of it) that it’s people not weapons that cause death. Naturally, each point are true. It’s possible to simultaneously seek new ways to stop violent bigotry and keep firearms away from its potential actors.

In this city of immense beauty, of pristine azure skies above sea and sand, the ocean and the coastline – our communal areas – may not seem entirely familiar again to the multitude who’ve observed that iconic Bondi seems so incongruous 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 the natural world.

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

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

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

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