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As Australia winds down for a customary Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of coast and scorching heat set to the soundtrack of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the nation's summer atmosphere feels, unfortunately, like no other.

It would be a dramatic oversimplification to characterize the national temperament after the anti-Jewish violent assault on Australian Jews during the beachside Hanukah festivities as one of mere discontent.

Across the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tenor of initial surprise, sorrow and horror 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. Similarly, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, energetic official crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to peacefully protest against genocide.

If ever there was a moment for a national listening, it is now, when our belief in humanity is so sorely diminished. This is particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have experienced the animosity and fear of faith-based targeting on this land or elsewhere.

And yet the algorithms keep spewing at us the banal instant opinions of those with inflammatory, polarizing stances but little understanding at all of that terrifying fragility.

This is a time when I regret not having a stronger faith. I lament, because having faith in humanity – in our capacity for compassion – has let us down so acutely. A different source, something higher, is required.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme examples of human decency. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. First responders – law enforcement and medical staff, those who charged into the gunfire to help others, some publicly hailed but for the most part unnamed and unheralded.

When the police tape still waved in the wind all about Bondi, the necessity of community, religious and ethnic solidarity was laudably promoted by religious figures. It was a message of love and acceptance – of bringing together rather than splitting apart in a moment of targeted violence.

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

Unity, hope and compassion was the message 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 elected officials moved straight for the darkness, using tragedy as a cynical opportunity to question Australia’s immigration policies.

Observe the harmful rhetoric of division from veteran fomenters of societal discord, capitalizing on the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the statements of political figures while the probe was still active.

Politics has a formidable task to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is grieving and frightened and looking for the light and, not least, answers to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as likely, 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 domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and consistently alerted of the threat of antisemitic violence?

How quickly we were subjected to that cliched line (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not guns that cause death. Of course, both things are true. It’s feasible to simultaneously pursue new ways to prevent violent bigotry and keep firearms away from its potential actors.

In this metropolis of profound beauty, of clear blue heavens above ocean and sand, the water and the coastline – our shared community spaces – may not look entirely familiar again to the many who’ve observed that famous Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene violence.

We yearn 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 cancelling Christmas party plans. Reflective solitude will seem more in order.

But this is perhaps somewhat against instinct. For in these days of anxiety, outrage, sadness, bewilderment and grief we need each other now more than ever.

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

But tragically, all of the indicators are that cohesion in public life and society will be elusive this long, draining summer.