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As the nation winds down for a customary Christmas holiday across languorous days of beach and scorching heat accompanied by the soundtrack of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the nation's summer atmosphere seems, sadly, like none before.

It would be a dramatic oversimplification to describe the collective temperament after the anti-Jewish terrorist attack on Jewish Australians during Bondi Hanukah celebrations as one of mere ennui.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tone of immediate surprise, sorrow and horror is segueing to anger and deep division.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed concerns of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Just as, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, vigorous government and institutional crackdown against antisemitism with the right to demonstrate against mass atrocities.

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 endured the animosity and fear of faith-based targeting on this continent or elsewhere.

And yet the social media feeds keep spewing 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 stronger faith. I mourn, because having faith in humanity – in our capacity for kindness – has failed us so acutely. Something else, something higher, is needed.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such extreme instances of human decency. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – police officers and paramedics, those who ran towards the danger to aid others, some publicly hailed but for the most part unnamed and unheralded.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered in the wind all about Bondi, the imperative of community, faith-based and ethnic solidarity was admirably championed by religious figures. It was a message of love and acceptance – of bringing together rather than splitting apart in a time of antisemitic slaughter.

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

Togetherness, hope and love was the message of belief.

‘Our shared community spaces 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 elected officials moved straight for the pessimism, using the atrocity as a cynical opportunity to question Australia’s migration rules.

Observe the dangerous rhetoric of division from longstanding fomenters of Australian racial division, exploiting the massacre before the site was even cold. Then consider the statements of political figures while the investigation was still active.

Government has a daunting task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is grieving and scared and seeking the light and, not least, explanations to so many questions.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as likely, did such a large open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly inadequate security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and repeatedly warned of the danger of targeted attacks?

How quickly we were subjected to that tired argument (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not guns that kill. Naturally, each point are true. It’s possible to simultaneously pursue new ways to stop violent bigotry and keep guns away from its potential perpetrators.

In this metropolis of immense beauty, of pristine azure skies above sea and sand, the ocean and the beaches – our communal areas – may not look quite the same again to the many who’ve noted that iconic Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.

We long right now for understanding and significance, for family, and perhaps for the solace of beauty in culture or the natural world.

This weekend many Australians are calling off Christmas party plans. Quiet contemplation will seem more appropriate.

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

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

But tragically, all of the portents are that cohesion in politics and the community will be elusive this extended, enervating summer.