Clearly, we do not grasp wisdom at its higher level, but since we do know what wisdom is at our own level, we have something to clutch at.
Because there is a certain correspondence between the Sefirot of the World of Emanation and our own inner world.
Our souls are a sort of copy of the World of Emanation.
For this reason, we are able to relate to the Sefirot in spite of the difference in level between us, which, incidentally, is not only a difference of quantity but primarily of quality.
Notwithstanding, and despite the fact that the Wisdom of Emanation is not like our wisdom and Divine mercy is far from the mercy we practice, we can relate our intelligence to the truth of Divine wisdom and we can try to purify our hearts to approach whatever we conceive to be the Divine attribute of Mercy.
For evidently there is a correlation, if only because we dearly distinguish between wisdom and folly, between compassion and cruelty.
What is more, besides the fact that the attributes are distinct and separate, one from the other, there is also a very profound and dynamic inner relation between them all.
And this, too, we know from the most intimate knowledge we possess of ourselves.
–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
From "The Secret of Faith," in The Sustaining Utterance by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz