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While the nation winds down for a customary Christmas holiday during languorous days of coast and scorching heat set to the background of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the country’s summer atmosphere feels, sadly, like none before.

It would be a dramatic oversimplification to characterize the collective temperament after the antisemitic violent assault on Australian Jews during the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of simple ennui.

Across the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of the nation's urban centers – a tone of initial surprise, grief and terror is shifting to fury and bitter polarization.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed concerns of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Just as, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a far more urgent, vigorous official crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to demonstrate against genocide.

If ever there was a moment for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our belief in humanity is so deeply depleted. This is especially so for those of us lucky never to have experienced the animosity and fear of faith-based targeting on this land or elsewhere.

And yet the social media feeds keep spewing at us the trite hot takes of those with inflammatory, divisive views but no sense at all of that profound vulnerability.

This is a period when I regret not having a greater spiritual belief. I mourn, because believing in humanity – in mankind’s capacity for compassion – has failed us so painfully. A different source, a greater power, is required.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such extreme examples of human decency. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. First responders – law enforcement and medical staff, those who charged into the danger to help fellow humans, some publicly hailed but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the police tape still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the necessity of community, faith-based and cultural unity was admirably promoted by religious figures. It was a message of love and acceptance – of bringing together rather than splitting apart in a time of targeted violence.

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

Togetherness, hope and compassion was the essence of belief.

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

And yet elements of the political landscape reacted so nauseatingly quickly with fragmentation, blame and accusation.

Some elected officials gravitated straight for the darkness, using tragedy as a calculating opportunity to challenge Australia’s migration rules.

Observe the harmful message of division from longstanding agitators of Australian racial division, exploiting the attack before the site was even cold. Then read the statements of leadership aspirants while the probe was ongoing.

Government has a formidable task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is mourning and scared and seeking the light and, importantly, explanations to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as probable, did such a significant public 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 publicly and consistently alerted of the threat of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were subjected to that cliched line (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not weapons that kill. Of course, each point are true. It’s possible to simultaneously pursue new ways to stop violent bigotry and prevent guns away from its potential actors.

In this metropolis of immense beauty, of clear azure skies above ocean and sand, the water and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not look entirely familiar again to the many who’ve noted that iconic Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s horrific violence.

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

This weekend many Australians are cancelling holiday gathering plans. Reflective solitude will feel more in order.

But this is perhaps counterintuitively counterintuitive. For in these days of anxiety, outrage, melancholy, bewilderment 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 probably need most.

But sadly, all of the portents are that unity in politics and society will be elusive this extended, enervating summer.