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While Australia settles into for a customary Christmas holiday during languorous days of coast and blistering heat set to the background of Test cricket and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer mood seems, sadly, like no other.

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

Across the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tenor of immediate shock, sorrow and terror is shifting to anger and bitter division.

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced concerns of the Jewish community are now highly attuned. Just as, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, energetic official fight against antisemitism with the freedom 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 sorely depleted. This is particularly so for those of us lucky never to have experienced the animosity and fear of religious and ethnic targeting on this continent or elsewhere.

And yet the social media feeds keep churning out at us the trite hot takes of those with blistering, divisive views but no sense at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

This is a time when I regret not having a stronger spiritual belief. I mourn, because having faith in people – in our capacity for kindness – has let us down so painfully. Something else, a greater power, is needed.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme instances of human decency. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. First responders – law enforcement and medical staff, those who ran towards the gunfire to aid others, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unheralded.

When the police tape still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the necessity of community, faith-based and ethnic unity was admirably promoted by faith leaders. It was a call of love and tolerance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a moment of targeted violence.

In keeping with the symbolism of the Festival of Lights (light amid darkness), there was so much fitting reference of the need for hope.

Togetherness, light and love was the essence of belief.

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

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

Some politicians moved straight for the pessimism, using tragedy as a calculating chance to question Australia’s immigration policies.

Witness the dangerous message of disunity from veteran fomenters of Australian racial division, capitalizing on the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the statements of political figures while the investigation was still active.

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

Like why, when the official terror alert was assessed as likely, did such a significant open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly insufficient security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and consistently alerted of the danger of antisemitic violence?

How quickly we were treated to that tired line (or versions of it) that it’s people not guns that cause death. Of course, both things are valid. It’s feasible to simultaneously pursue new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and prevent guns away from its possible actors.

In this metropolis of profound splendor, of pristine 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 observed that iconic Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.

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

This weekend many Australians are calling off Christmas party plans. Reflective solitude will feel more in order.

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

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

But sadly, all of the indicators are that cohesion in politics and society will be elusive this extended, draining summer.