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While the nation winds down for a customary Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of coast and blistering heat set to the background of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the country’s summer mood feels, sadly, like no other.

It would be a dramatic oversimplification to characterize the collective disposition after the anti-Jewish violent assault on Jewish Australians during Bondi Hanukah festivities as one of mere ennui.

Across the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of the nation's urban centers – a tenor of initial shock, grief and terror is shifting to fury and deep polarization.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced concerns of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Just as, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a far more urgent, vigorous government and institutional fight against antisemitism with the freedom to demonstrate against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a time for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our belief in humanity is so sorely depleted. This is particularly so for those of us lucky never to have experienced the animosity and dread of religious and ethnic persecution on this land or anywhere else.

And yet the social media feeds keep churning out at us the trite instant opinions of those with blistering, polarizing views but no sense at all of that terrifying fragility.

This is a time when I regret not having a stronger faith. I mourn, because believing in people – in our potential for compassion – has failed us so painfully. A different source, a greater power, is needed.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such profound instances of human decency. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and medical staff, those who charged into the gunfire to aid others, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

When the police tape still waved in the wind all about Bondi, the imperative of community, faith-based and ethnic solidarity was laudably championed by faith leaders. It was a call of compassion and tolerance – of bringing together rather than dividing in a time of antisemitic slaughter.

In keeping with the symbolism of the Festival of Lights (light amid gloom), there was so much fitting evocation of the need for lightness.

Unity, light and love was the message of faith.

‘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 recrimination.

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

Witness the dangerous message of division from longstanding agitators of societal discord, exploiting the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then read the statements of political figures while the probe was ongoing.

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

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 inadequate security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have multiple firearms in the family home when the security agency has so publicly and repeatedly warned of the danger of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were treated to that cliched argument (or versions of it) that it’s people not guns that kill. Of course, both things are true. It’s possible to at the same time seek new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and prevent firearms away from its potential perpetrators.

In this city of profound splendor, of clear blue heavens above ocean and sand, the ocean and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not seem quite the same again to the many who’ve noted that famous Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s horrific violence.

We yearn right now for comprehension and meaning, for loved ones, and perhaps for the consolation of beauty in culture or nature.

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

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

The comfort 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 the community will be elusive this extended, draining summer.