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While the nation winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday during languorous days of beach and scorching heat set to the background of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the nation's summer atmosphere seems, unfortunately, like no other.

It would be a dramatic understatement to describe the collective temperament after the antisemitic violent assault on Australian Jews during Bondi Hanukah festivities as one of simple discontent.

Across the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tenor of immediate surprise, grief and horror is segueing to fury and deep polarization.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced concerns of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Just as, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, vigorous official fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a time for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our faith in mankind is so sorely diminished. This is especially so for those of us lucky never to have endured the hatred and fear of faith-based persecution on this continent or anywhere else.

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

This is a time when I lament not having a stronger faith. I lament, because having faith in people – in our potential for compassion – has failed us so painfully. Something else, a greater power, is required.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have witnessed such profound instances of human decency. The heroism of individuals. The bravery of those present. First responders – police officers and paramedics, those who charged into the gunfire to aid others, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

When the barrier cordon still waved wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of social, religious and cultural solidarity was admirably championed by religious figures. It was a message of love and acceptance – of bringing together rather than dividing in a moment of targeted violence.

Consistent with the meaning of Hanukah (illumination amid gloom), there was so much fitting evocation of the need for hope.

Togetherness, hope and compassion was the essence of belief.

‘Our shared community spaces may not appear quite the same again.’

And yet segments of the Australian polity reacted so disgustingly quickly with fragmentation, finger-pointing and recrimination.

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

Witness the harmful message of division from veteran agitators of Australian racial division, exploiting the massacre before the site was even cold. Then consider the statements of leadership aspirants while the probe was still active.

Government has a formidable task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is grieving and frightened and looking for the hope and, not least, answers to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was assessed as likely, did such a large public 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 targeted attacks?

How quickly we were treated to that tired argument (or iterations of it) that it’s people not guns that kill. Naturally, each point are true. It’s feasible to simultaneously pursue new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and keep firearms away from its possible actors.

In this metropolis of immense beauty, of pristine azure skies above ocean and shore, the water and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not look quite the same again to the many who’ve observed that famous Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.

We long right now for understanding and significance, for family, and perhaps for the consolation 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 counterintuitively against instinct. For in these days of anxiety, anger, sadness, confusion and grief we need each other more than ever.

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

But sadly, all of the portents are that cohesion in public life and the community will be hard to find this extended, draining summer.