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As the nation settles into for a traditional Christmas holiday across slow-moving days of beach and blistering heat set to the soundtrack of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the country’s summer mood feels, sadly, like none before.

It would be a significant understatement to describe the national disposition after the antisemitic 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 tone of initial shock, grief and terror is shifting to fury and deep division.

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced concerns of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Just as, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, energetic government and institutional crackdown against antisemitism 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 endured the animosity and dread of faith-based targeting on this land or anywhere else.

And yet the algorithms keep spewing at us the banal hot takes of those with inflammatory, polarizing stances but little understanding at all of that profound fragility.

This is a time when I lament not having a greater spiritual belief. I lament, because believing in people – in mankind’s capacity for kindness – has let us down so painfully. A different source, something higher, is required.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have seen such profound instances of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. First responders – law enforcement and medical staff, those who charged into the gunfire to aid others, some publicly hailed but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still waved wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of community, faith-based and cultural unity was laudably promoted by religious figures. It was a message of love and tolerance – of bringing together rather than splitting apart in a moment of targeted violence.

In keeping with the meaning of Hanukah (light amid darkness), there was so much appropriate reference of the need for lightness.

Unity, light and compassion was the message of faith.

‘Our public places may not look exactly as they did again.’

And yet segments of the Australian polity reacted so nauseatingly swiftly with fragmentation, blame and recrimination.

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

Witness the dangerous rhetoric of division from veteran fomenters of Australian racial division, capitalizing on the attack before the site was even cold. Then read the words of leadership aspirants while the probe was still active.

Politics has a daunting job to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is grieving and frightened and seeking the hope and, not least, explanations to so many questions.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as probable, 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 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 argument (or iterations of it) that it’s individuals not weapons that kill. Of course, both things are true. It’s feasible to at the same time pursue new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and keep firearms away from its possible perpetrators.

In this city of immense splendor, of pristine blue heavens above ocean and shore, the ocean and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not seem entirely familiar again to the many who’ve observed that famous Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.

We long right now for comprehension and significance, for loved ones, and perhaps for the solace of aesthetics in culture or the natural world.

This weekend many Australians are calling off holiday gathering plans. Quiet contemplation will seem more appropriate.

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

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

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